Blog Archives
Visiting
Visiting is a tender, funny, unsentimental diary of a daughter spending time with her dying mother through hospice, dementia, ordinary errands, cigarettes, fast food, caregivers, family history, and the strange practical weather of grief. The book follows Polly Walker Blakemore’s visits from 2018 to her mother’s death and burial in 2020, and what accumulates isn’t a dramatic plot so much as a lived-in record of decline: the “bad lady” who is really the bath lady, cereal improved with ice cream and sugar, Panera and Pieology and Five Guys becoming almost sacramental, Rhonda Ba Bamba appearing like a grace note, Missy’s death opening a fresh pocket of sorrow, and finally the obituary, the grave flags, the lichen on the cross, the household objects waiting to be claimed.
What I loved most was the book’s refusal to tidy anything up. Blakemore doesn’t pretend caretaking is noble in some glowing, greeting-card way. It’s exhausting, smoky, repetitive, bodily, sometimes gross, often funny, and frequently boring until suddenly it isn’t. I found myself moved by the way love here arrives through small maintenance tasks: fixing a loose door handle, bringing candy, rubbing a back, watching Food Network, sitting beside a bed while language thins into echo. The book understands that grief can coexist with irritation, curiosity, appetite, logistical competence, even relief. That honesty gave the whole thing a deep steadiness.
The writing has a wonderfully vibrant texture, dry and observant. Blakemore has a sharp eye for the comic absurdity of decline, like trying to make a “safe-smoking protocol” for someone on oxygen, or treating a car trip for burgers as both outing and ordeal. But she also knows when to let a sentence soften. Her descriptions of her mother’s hands, her grandmother’s calendars, the orchids and peace plants, the final season shifting toward fall, all carry a quiet ache. The ideas in the book felt strongest when they circled memory and identity: how a person can become unrecognizable and still remain intensely themselves, how children only ever know part of their parents, how a life gets reduced and preserved through objects, habits, foods, phrases, and other people’s recollections.
By the end, I felt both saddened and oddly calmed, as though the book had made room for death without making it pretty. Visiting is best for readers who appreciate reflective memoirs about aging, caregiving, mothers and daughters, dementia, and the messy, intimate comedy of family life. I’d especially recommend it to anyone who has sat beside a loved one and wondered whether “just being there” is enough, because this book answers, gently and without fuss, that sometimes it’s everything.
Pages: 131 | ASIN : B0GTWQLH6K
Eye of the Storm
Eye of the Storm by Charles Gomez is a literary fiction novel with the sweep of a Cuban American family saga and touches of magical realism. The story follows Lazaro Lopez, a seventy-year-old man trying to write about the hurricane that shattered his childhood in Hialeah in 1963. As he looks back, the storm becomes more than weather. It opens the door to buried family trauma, domestic violence, Santería, faith, shame, survival, and the long, uneven road toward forgiveness.
I really liked the way Gomez writes memory as something that feels alive. Lazaro’s voice moves between fear, humor, tenderness, and pain, and that mix feels honest. I liked that the book doesn’t treat childhood trauma as one clean wound with one clean cure. It lingers. It changes shape. Sometimes it hides inside a joke, a ghostly visit from Mami, a creaking rocking chair, or a scene filled with storm winds and old Cuban songs. The writing can be lush, especially when Gomez describes Hialeah, the family home, the religious imagery, and Esperanza’s presence. The style can be theatrical, which makes sense given the book’s roots as a play. I could feel that stage energy in the dramatic confrontations and heightened spiritual moments.
I also admired the author’s choice to blend realism with Santería, Catholicism, and folklore instead of keeping the story in a strictly literal lane. That choice gives the novel its strange pulse. The spirits, visions, and rituals are not just decoration. They show how people reach for meaning when ordinary language fails them. The book deals candidly with abuse, violence, mental illness, incarceration, and family damage. I found myself appreciating the compassion in the novel, but I also needed to pause sometimes. Gomez asks the reader to sit with hard things, and he doesn’t always soften the blow.
As a work of literary fiction and magical realist family saga, Eye of the Storm will appeal most to readers who like emotionally intense novels about memory, heritage, trauma, and healing. I would recommend it to readers who appreciate character-driven stories rooted in Cuban American culture, especially those who are drawn to books where the past keeps speaking until someone finally listens. It’s heavy, heartfelt, and its strongest moments come from a simple question: how does a person survive what should have broken them?
Pages: 376 | ASIN: B0FX9H5SZM
So You Want To Be An Actor
Linda Soules’s So You Want To Be An Actor is an engaging and practical nonfiction guide for young readers who are curious about acting as more than costumes, applause, and red-carpet dreams. Written for children around ages 10 to 14, the book takes readers behind the curtain and into the real work of performance. Soules explains that acting begins long before opening night, with memorized lines, script study, rehearsal, observation, and character exploration. The result is a clear, age-appropriate introduction to acting as both an art and a serious craft.
One of the book’s strengths is the way it breaks down what actors actually do. Readers learn how performers analyze scripts, ask what a character wants, use voice and movement, and build a believable inner life for someone else. Soules also introduces important acting ideas, including Stanislavski’s foundation and the realities behind American “Method” acting, without making the material feel too difficult. The illustrations and staged moments help each concept come alive, showing actors in rehearsal, preparation, and performance. These visual details make the book especially accessible for children who are just beginning to explore drama, theater, or storytelling.
What makes So You Want To Be An Actor especially valuable is its honesty. Soules doesn’t present acting as an easy path to fame; instead, she shows the discipline, physical effort, emotional work, and resilience the profession requires. The book discusses auditions, rejection, long hours, uncertainty, and the need to keep practicing even when success doesn’t come quickly. At the same time, it remains encouraging. Young readers are shown that acting can build confidence, empathy, observation, imagination, and the courage to try something new, even when it feels awkward or difficult.
So You Want To Be An Actor is a thoughtful and useful book for children interested in drama class, school plays, auditions, or the performing arts in general. Soules writes in a direct, respectful style that treats young readers as capable of understanding the real demands of the profession. The glossary, fun facts, recommended reading, and practical tips add to its value as a resource. This is an excellent choice for aspiring performers, creative kids, or families looking for a grounded, inspiring way to talk about acting, practice, empathy, and perseverance.
Pages: 38 | ASIN : B0GYL3NC1B
Patriot of the Lowcountry: Eliza Wilkinson and the Fall of Charleston
Patriot of the Lowcountry by Tracy Lawson is a historical fiction novel set during the American Revolution, centered on Eliza Wilkinson, a young widow in the South Carolina Lowcountry whose private fight for independence becomes tangled with war, occupation, family loyalty, grief, and slavery. The story follows Eliza as British forces and Loyalist raiders threaten her home, her community, and the fragile sense of freedom she has built for herself, while Lawson grounds the novel in Eliza’s real letters and the civilian experience of Charleston’s fall.
I loved how immediate the book feels. Lawson doesn’t put history in a glass case. She puts us in the rooms, on the roads, near the marshes, and inside the fear of not knowing who is coming next. I liked that Eliza isn’t written as a perfect heroine. She’s proud, stubborn, brave, sometimes naïve, and often learning in real time. That made her easier to trust. The first-person voice gives the novel a close, confiding quality, almost like Eliza is sitting across from me, trying to make sense of what happened while still refusing to soften her own edges.
I also appreciated the author’s choice to make liberty more complicated than a slogan. The book is clearly a Revolutionary War story, but it keeps asking who gets to claim freedom and who is still denied it. Eliza’s thoughts about women’s independence and slavery give the novel its sharper bite. The dialogue leans a little polished for moments of crisis, and some themes are stated more directly than I usually prefer. Still, I didn’t mind much, because the emotional core holds. The book wants readers to see women not as background figures in history, but as witnesses, thinkers, risk-takers, and moral actors.
I would recommend Patriot of the Lowcountry to readers who enjoy historical fiction with a strong female narrator, especially those interested in the American Revolution beyond the battlefield. It’ll appeal most to people who like character-driven stories, well-researched settings, and books that mix personal survival with larger questions about justice and freedom. It’s reflective, tense, and quietly forceful. A good fit for readers who want their historical fiction novels to feel authentic.
Pages: 303 | ASIN : B0GRQBHT8Q
Gio in the Land of Syriax: Quest for the Eternal Flame
Ellen Buckley’s Gio in the Land of Syriax: Quest for the Eternal Flame completely swept me into its world from the very first page. I fell in love with this book almost instantly. With its dreamlike illustrations and gentle storytelling, it feels like stepping into another realm entirely, one filled with forests, mountains, glowing caves, and the quiet promise that adventure is waiting just around the corner.
The story follows Gio, the guardian of Syriax, as he sets off on an important quest to find the Eternal Flame and save his village from hardship. Along the way, he is joined by his loyal red dragon companion. Together, they journey through changing landscapes, from peaceful forests to dark tunnels and hidden caves. Each challenge pushes Gio to become braver, steadier, and more determined. The pacing is especially comforting. The story unfolds like a bedtime adventure, where every new place feels magical and every obstacle feels exciting without becoming too overwhelming for younger readers.
What I especially loved was how immersive the world felt. Syriax seems alive, almost as though you have fallen into the story yourself. The landscapes shift beautifully from page to page, and I often found myself pausing just to take in the details before moving forward. The quest is simple enough for younger readers to follow, yet it still carries enough wonder and suspense to keep them fully invested. Watching Gio continue on, even when things become difficult, offers a meaningful lesson about courage, perseverance, and believing in yourself.
The illustrations deserve tremendous praise. They were honestly one of my favorite parts of the entire book. Soft, magical, and almost ethereal, they are also vivid enough to pull readers completely into Gio’s world. The glowing firelight, towering trees, and changing skies give each page a gentle cinematic quality. Younger readers will absolutely be drawn in by the visuals, especially during bedtime reading. Even so, I think readers of all ages will find something to admire here.
The language is simple and accessible, making this an especially lovely choice for younger children who are beginning to enjoy slightly longer fantasy adventures. At the same time, the story has enough heart, imagination, and warmth to keep older readers engaged as well.
Gio in the Land of Syriax: Quest for the Eternal Flame is a beautiful, fantastical tale of friendship, bravery, and exploration that feels magical from beginning to end. I will definitely be keeping an eye out for the next book in this series.
Pages: 51 | ASIN : B0GNTH81D8
It Started With a YouTube Comment
Wonderment Within Weirdness follows Matthew after he dies and wakes in a bureaucratic and politically fractured Heaven, where divine authority, rebellion, and multiverse conflict collide in a bold sci-fi fantasy adventure. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
Short answer: a YouTube comment. lol. Long answer, it was a YouTube comment on a video I had seen on some atheist YouTube channel I had watched back in college in 2017. Dont remember which channel, or what the video was called, but I think it was about Lucifer’s depiction in the Bible and other media, and how Lucifer’s depictions has a lot of misconceptions, and in the comments of that video was a comment, not sure how it went exactly, but it hypothetically asked the question “what if Lucifer was good and God was bad?” and that inspired me to write my book. And before finding this comment, I had tried to write other books, but I barely got anywhere with those ideas and scrapped them. but the idea i got from the youtube comment really sparked something in me. i felt i was onto something. a what-if role reversal story. But I didn’t want it to just be straight up saying definitively that God is bad and Lucifer is good. because that is up to people’s interpretations of who they consider good or bad. So, what I did, I decided to come up with a multiverse story, to explore different versions of figures, so that the versions that we know can exist, separately, out there, somewhere, while my book explores different versions of figures, beyond the ones that we know.
Matthew begins the story by dying and waking into something far stranger than expected. What did you want his first encounter with the afterlife to reveal about him?
Those things were not what they seemed to be.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
My biggest themes were friendship and found family, and standing up for what is right, even when it is something folks may not appreciate or even know about.
What do you hope readers take away from the book’s anger, chaos, and big questions about judgment, exclusion, and power?
That sometimes it takes one person to make a difference. One action, one choice, one decision, sometimes that can be the spark for change.
Author Links: GoodReads | X | Facebook | Website
Curiosity First
So You Want To Be A Video Game Designer is an engaging introduction to video game design that combines creativity, real-world insight, and practical guidance for young aspiring creators. What inspired you to write a career-focused book specifically for kids interested in video game design?
It started with my son. He was captivated by gaming from about the age of one (and that is no exaggeration), and as a parent, I had to make a choice. I could spend the next decade telling him to put down the controller, or I could pay attention to what was actually happening when he played. And what was happening was thinking. He was pattern-matching, problem-solving, building, breaking, rebuilding. So instead of fighting his passion, I tried to help him see what was underneath it. He is twelve now, deeply immersed in coding and technology, and at this point, I’m pretty sure he has taught me more about the industry than I have taught him. So You Want To Be A Video Game Designer came from that experience. There are millions of kids out there who love games the way he does, and I wanted them to see that the thing they already love can lead somewhere real.
The book emphasizes that game design is real work, not just playing games. Why was that important to highlight?
Because the assumption that gaming is just play is exactly what stops kids — and the adults around them — from taking the interest seriously. Game design is engineering. It is storytelling. It is psychology, art, and project management all at once. When a kid finishes a level and thinks “that was fun,” they are not seeing the thousands of decisions someone made to produce that feeling. The book seeks to open that up. Once you see how much real work goes into making something feel effortless, you also see why it might be worth dedicating a career to. And I think kids deserve to be told the truth about the work behind the things they love. They can handle it. In my experience, they are usually relieved to hear that the field they are drawn to has substance.
The book does a great job of showing collaboration. Why was it important to highlight roles beyond “the designer”?
Because no game gets made by one person. Even small indie games involve programmers, artists, sound designers, writers, testers, and people whose entire job is making sure the game runs without crashing. If a kid only sees “the designer” as the path forward, they might miss the role that actually fits them. Maybe they love drawing. Maybe they are obsessed with how music makes people feel. Maybe they like finding things that are broken and figuring out why. There is a place in the industry for all of those kids. I wanted the book to show that the door is wider than it looks from the outside.
You include practical ways kids can start learning now. What first step would you most recommend to a curious reader?
Start playing differently. The same game you have played a hundred times will teach you something new if you start asking why. Why does the music shift right at that moment? Why does the jump feel right? Why do you keep coming back even when the game beats you? That is a designer’s eye, and you can develop it without writing a single line of code. From there, the technical tools — Scratch, GameMaker, Unity, learning to code — become much easier because you have already been thinking like someone who builds games. Curiosity first. Tools second.
Author Links: GoodReads | Website
So You Want To Be A Video Game Designer is an illustrated nonfiction guide for kids ages 10 to 14 who are curious about one of the most exciting creative careers in science and technology. It goes far beyond surface-level inspiration to show young readers what game designers actually do every day — the real process of turning a rough concept sketch into a living, breathing game that players cannot put down.
You will learn how game design works from the inside: how designers prototype mechanics and test them until they break, how writers build interactive stories that respond to the player’s choices, and how artists, engineers, and sound designers collaborate to create worlds that feel impossibly real. You will discover the science and psychology behind why certain games hook you and others do not — and why understanding that difference is the foundation of great design.
This book does not skip the hard parts. It covers the history of video games and the visionary designers who invented the creative language the entire industry now speaks. It explains what development teams look like, what every role on a team actually contributes, and what it takes to push a project from first draft to finished product. It is honest about what the work demands, because kids who are serious about this future career deserve a real answer, not a simplified one.
You will also find practical guidance on what young people can start doing right now — from sketching game ideas and learning basic coding concepts to studying the games they already play with a designer’s eye. Whether your passion leans toward art, storytelling, programming, or the science of how players think, there is a path into game design that fits the way your mind works.
For the kid who builds worlds in notebooks and debates game mechanics with friends. For the young reader who senses that video games are something more than entertainment — that they are an art form, a science, and an engineering challenge all at once.
The next great game is waiting for someone to imagine it. That someone might be you.
Ages 10 to 14. Nonfiction. Careers and Professions. Illustrated.
Infidelities, Absurdities, and Tribulations
The Uber 1% follows the absurd lives of the wealthy and status-obsessed as you turn country-club gossip, social punishment, affairs, and vanity into a sharp satirical portrait of privilege without self-awareness. What first drew you to the “Uber Rich” as a subject for satire?
Basically my up-close association with and observations of the Uber and Filthy Rich. For years, I laughed at, made note of, and in some cases endured their vagaries, vanities, infidelities, absurdities, and tribulations which seemed the “stuff” ripe for satire.
Centerport feels like a recurring stage for these stories. What does that setting represent to you?
Uber life on the Connecticut shoreline.
How do you balance exaggeration with emotional truth when writing characters this vain, privileged, or ridiculous?
I’m not sure that I do or that I really make a conscious effort to distinguish the two.
Were any characters especially fun or especially difficult to write?
Frankly, they were all fun. Maybe because I knew them so well, in many cases, they just wrote themselves.
