Books
Writer Problems
Here are a couple of suggestions from an inexperienced, wannabe on some ways to get by without an editor, but still get a lot of help editing.
Entertainment
Video Game Review: Horizon Zero Dawn: Frozen Wilds
(5/5) Frozen Wilds takes all the fun stuff in the original game and adds a bit more to it. You get a few more weapons. You get some new skills. There are a couple of new challenge formats. And even though I was eventually 20 levels higher than the highest quest level, it was still a very enjoyable challenge.
Books
Book Review: The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty
(4/5 stars) The third book on the Book Riot Read Harder Challenge is "A classic of genre fiction," and after scrolling through their list of suggestions, I decided this would be a good one to pick up. Everyone is probably familiar with the story because the movie is superfamous. The book is pretty much the same with a few additional details. I wish it weren't so familiar because the book is really well put together and it would probably be a thrill to experience the story for the first time through this book.
Books
Book Review: Wisp of a Thing (Tufa #2) by Alex Bledsoe
Summary: (3/5 stars) I thoroughly enjoyed the first of the Tufa novels, but even though this book had a lot of the same color and tone of the first book, it didn't manage to recapture the magic. I think it's probably because the main character is different and the overarching conflict between the two fairy families doesn't expand in a very satisfying way. I think there are five of these books and I'll keep reading, but now without the same anticipation.
Books
Book Review: Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry
(4 of 5 stars) I picked up Helter Skelter in order to meet the second item on Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge: a true crime novel. It's a good book. Well-constructed, detailed, and insightful. But it's also very clearly written from a single perspective and comes with it some almost comedic elements of Bugliosi's own agenda and ego.
Books
Book Review: The Hum and the Shiver by Alex Bledsoe
(4/5 stars) This is a contemporary-era fantasy novel set in the mountains of eastern Tennessee. The Hyatt family starts seeing death omens just as their daughter arrives home, injured from a tour of duty in Iraq. The magic in this book is mysterious and subtle and explained only very slowly. I really enjoyed the fact that the stakes in the book are really personal unlike in epic fantasy books. And, of course, I also enjoyed the multi-faceted portrayal of southern culture. I'll definitely pick up the second book in this series soon.
Books
Book Review: Maurice by EM Forster
(5/5 stars) I picked up this book as part of Book Riot's 2018 Read Harder Challenge in order to satisfy the posthumous publication requirement. It's a beautiful and heart-breaking story of same-sex love and loss. It also has an ambiguous ending a la the movie version of Brokeback Mountain. So, the reader is left wondering about what will happen to Maurice next.
Books
Book Review: The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom by Jonathan Haidt
(3/5 stars) My friend, Paul, recommended this book to me as something I might be interested in and he was not wrong. This book is chock-full of good information on psychology and sociology that is useful to know. But for some reason the presentation of that information just did not grab me, hence the relatively low rating of this book.
Personal
Happiness Hypothesis: What Are My Strengths?
Online quizzes aren't the best psychological instruments, obviously, but I tried to approach the quiz with openness and honesty. And not only do these results reflect things I identified with my exercises with Kelsey, but they reflect feedback I received from several of my friends when I asked them to identify my top three strengths.