Book reviews

I've noticed something about myself recently, something I'd rather not admit to, but something that is part of me nonetheless. The thing I'm referring to is the fact that I am more likely to leave a negative rating than a positive one. It isn't because I don't like books, I'm not the angry book nerd (like the angry Nintendo nerd but for books), I just feel like when I don't enjoy something I am more likely to write about it. Why? Partly because it's boring to write about how much I love a book. Also, I find that I have more to say about something that I DID NOT enjoy. I feel like there are things that I can put my finger on that I didn't enjoy. I just have more to say about something that I did not like. I think most people are like that. If you have a negative experience at a restaurant you are more likely to go on and on about how a waitress spilled a drink on you and how the manager failed to do something about it. I also must admit that I am not good at writing reviews. I'm better at talking about something that I liked in a group of people who also read/watched/played. I want to write more reviews in the future (honest ones, I won't give a positive or negative for no reason). I know authors need reviews to bring in readers so I will try to set aside time in the future to write reviews (and take notes while I am reading the book, like I used to do).

My history with reading

I've written a lot about my history with writing, but I don't think I've ever said anything about my love for reading. I've talked about certain books that I've read, but I believe everyone has a story behind why they love reading. My story actually started before I learned to read. My parents used to read me the Bernstein Bears at night before I went to sleep. I don't remember those stories much, but I do hope one day that I'll have a child of my own to share those stories with. As I got older I noticed that the other children at my school didn't like to read. Reading was something the teacher told us to do, not something to do for fun. I ended up falling in love with the TV show Ghost Writer and reading even though it wasn't cool. The town soon built a brand new library and I got a library card, which was a big deal for me since it was my first one. I remember spending a lot of my time devouring the Goosebumps series and I moved on to Fear Street when I was a little older (I can't wait for the movie). In high school I read Carrie, which lead me to have a love/hate relationship with Stephan King's books. I also started spending my lunches in the library to read (I read things like Speak and Smack). The school gave us a 15 minute silent reading period where I ended up reading a lot of books. As a young adult I started going into the Barnes and Noble chat room and I ended up meeting an author who was not yet published but was about to release her first book. She went on to become one of my favorite authors (I'm scared to say her name because of recent events, but she's an awesome person). She was the first author I ever really followed and I still follow her to this day. She introduced me to the urban fantasy and paranormal romance world, which became my go to genre for a good book. In 2015 my reading life took a hit that it hasn't quite recovered from. I had access to a big library and I would go every week, but I also had a boyfriend who couldn't bare for me to be in the other room. I don't want to talk much about that time in my life, but it wasn't great. I ended up giving up both reading and writing, which caused my work to suffer. I'm currently trying to get back into reading and considering doing writing prompts every day to start my day. I've found that I have problems finishing a book now. I have finished a handful of books lately, but it's nothing compared to the way I used to read. I used to finish at least one book a week and now I barely read past the first chapter. Anyway, I hope to bring myself back to the place I had been before with my reading.

Negative Reviews

Recently I wrote a post about someone using the hurricane to sell books. I also posted a negative review of that book, which I shouldn't have since I hadn't read the book. I admit that I was wrong by doing so, but I am not wrong for thinking it was insensitive to use the hurricane to promote the book. What was wrong with just saying something like: check out this cool book by my buddy? Recently, the author has made several posts firing up her fans and sending them in my direction. They have sent me insulting messages and comments (very few of which I have read, I mostly just delete them). I have responded to a few, the ones who did not leave insults. Her fans (mostly women in their fifties and sixties who don't seem to have jobs or things to do other than comment all day) started by leaving me comments bashing me for anything and everything they could. They moved on to visiting my other social media, my author page, my twitter, blog, etc. Recently they have started leaving negative reviews for my book, Zombie Bite (which is a horror and not an urban fantasy). One person out of all of those negative reviews read the book and said that there is a passage in the book where the main character talks about how she is reminded of driving through New Orleans after Katrina. The reader claims that she believes I used the hurricane to sell books. I never used the hurricane to sell a book, I simply gave the character a backstory. She had survived Katrina, which did not cause zombies to roam the earth. I'm sure there are tons of books that mention Katrina. Characters are like people and each person goes through different things. I will admit that I am not a fan of Zombie Bite, and was considering taking it down and maybe reworking it. I wrote that book, short story or whatever you want to call it when I was going through a rough time in my life and I don't think that it portrays my best work. I actually hadn't written for a long time when I started working on Zombie Bite again and I rushed it out. I needed something to do to busy myself at the time I wrote that and it was kind of my crutch. Zombie Bite helped me feel better, but I do regret releasing it. It wasn't ready and maybe it never would have been. I stopped working on Hair of The Wolf for that reason. I hadn't outlined it and I felt that it deserved better. I put some distance between myself and it but I will be going back to it. I'm almost ready to release The Fortune Teller's Gift, something I actually worked very hard on. I outlined and edited it. It's something I'm actually proud of, which I couldn't say for Zombie Bite. I have expressed my feelings about Zombie Bite in the past, and I'm still not sure what to do with it. I just don't want my future novels to get hatred because of something that was just a misunderstanding. I never wanted tons of comments and negative reviews, I never wanted people trying to ruin my future career. I have wanted to be a writer for as long as I could write and these people think it's okay to ruin that. I want to make it very clear that I have never bashed the author, the only thing I had an issue with was her promotion and the fact that she is sending her fans after me. I tend not to review things, unless I do not like them, but I will be making a point to write a few reviews today on books that I have truly enjoyed. I also want to note that most of these people probably wouldn't have picked up The Fortune Teller's Gift anyway.

The Retail Client Handbook

Writing fiction is my goal in life, it's something I've wanted to do since I could hold a pencil, but right now I am working in commissioned retail sales. The place where I work doesn't provide client books or online tools to help us. I decided it would be best to create my own to bring in returning customers, but I knew that I couldn't be the only one who felt the need for this item, so I made a book that I think could help a lot of people with their sales and bringing in returning customers. You can purchase it by clicking here!

I've decided to partner with audible

I've decided that it would be a wise idea for me as an author to partner with audible. While my books are not featured on the site, I hope that one day they are. I think audible is a great tool for busy people and I will be checking it out myself (I really want to read Final Girls, but I'm short on time and money). Please click the banner above and get your two free audiobooks!


Also, if you don't have the kindle app for some reason:

Weekend Review: Netflix's Death Note [[SPOILERS]]

To say I’m a fan of Death Note may be an understatement (I’ve even named my dogs after two of the characters who are missing in the American adaptation). I’ve seen most of the Death Note media that I could find, so I feel like I’m in a good position to write this review. I wish I could say that I enjoyed this adaption, but I’m going to be joining the pretty much every other reviewer on the internet in hating it. I’ve read somewhere that this adaption of Death Note is supposed to focus more on the notebook and less on the characters so I will start there. The notebook is barely used. It is shown that there are a ton of rules, most of which don’t exist in the anime, but no one ever goes into detail about any of them. Light is shown reading the rules but he doesn’t bother to explain anything (even when he tells Mia that there are a lot of rules). In the anime there is a scene where Light explains that he wrote his own rules in the notebook to benefit him when the police obtained it, but nothing of that nature happened here. In fact, some of the original rules were ignored, like the cause of death not being written became ‘dealer’s choice’. There were entries from past owners, and the more I watched the more I wished that I was watching some of their stories instead. Now I will move on to the rest of what I had issues with. First, Light had to be forced to use the Death Note. Why was he given a Death Note in the first place? It was clear that he was only using it to please Mia. He also decided that he wanted to be called Kira, and that’s why he drew police attention. No one gave a second thought to his crimes before he used the name Kira. That’s another problem I had with the movie, no one figured things out the way they were supposed to. L seemed to figure out that Light was the killer after doing almost no research. The characters weren’t believable and did not behave in ways they should have, like L exposing himself to Light as soon as he met him, Mia got in a relationship with Light because he used to stare at her creepily when she was at cheerleader practice, etc. Ryuk may have only been on screen for a total of five minutes, which annoyed me. He told Light that he wasn’t like his dog, which was practically the only thing similar to the anime. Ryuk wasn’t Light’s friend, he wasn’t there to help him, and he was only along for the ride. This time he didn’t seem to have a notebook of his own and barely anything was explained about him. There was a scene where Light was looking at a book that had a picture of Ryuk, but he closed it without letting us learn anything about him. L was also a big problem for me. He acted more like an emotional breakdown than a character. He was always let his feelings guide him, even if it meant putting himself/his job in danger. He wasn’t the intelligent character for the anime, and it was hard to watch him eat candy. The movie basically ignored everything about Death Note and tried to make something similar to the Suicide Squad. The closest thing this resembles is the Death Note tv series, but even that isn’t close to what this mess is.   

Allure Magazine is one of the many magazines that only consist of ads

Allure magazine is basically just one big assortment of ads, or at least that’s the conclusion I’ve come to after receiving multiple magazines from them. I recently started getting the magazines in the mail (I didn’t sign up for them, I think an ex somehow sent them to me), but I only recently got the chance to flip through them. I was expecting to find articles on beauty, but I wasn’t prepared for a magazine that blurred the line between ads and articles so much that I couldn’t tell which was which. I had seen a video online last year that pointed out the insane amount of ads in a normal women’s magazine, but it didn’t say anything about the content inside. Basically, the articles were all things such as ‘insert celebrity’s’ makeup bag, or the top ten best beauty products for fall. I understand that Allure is a beauty magazine and the main reason for its existence is to sell beauty products, but there are better beauty stores out there that can be shared. I even have a beauty story of my own that I would love to share with the magazine (How my now ex-boyfriend changed my relationship with beauty), but I doubt the magazine will ever run stories that go beyond the products they are paid to promote. To me, beauty has always been something personal and I believe every woman has a beauty story. There are women in this world who aren’t allowed to express themselves through beauty, so don’t you owe the people who actually buy your magazine stories that actually have some substance to them? I looked around on your website and found a few articles that I would have loved to see in the magazine that was delivered to my door, so I can’t help but wonder why you had to hide them away on your website? I haven’t really read many women’s magazines in the last few years, but the ones I have read have all been the same. I honestly wish that I could create my own magazine full of unedited voiced from around the world. I feel like there’s so much we can learn from each other, even when it comes to beauty. Allure, please look at the content you put out and considering adding new authors to your publication. 

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