My Favorite Book, And A Little Of My Story + writing update!!
Hi guys! It’s been a bit. I’m a horrible blogger. But that’s okay. 🙃 I just have a couple things I wanted to talk about.
First off: sorry for being so absent here! Life is nuts. But, *drumroll please* I’VE BEEN WRITING!!! I’m almost halfway through writing my historical(ish) fantasy myth retelling!! I started officially writing it January 1st and can’t believe I’ve made it this far. I hope you guys want to read it someday!
In other news: there’s a book coming out later this month that I absolutely ADORE and I wanted to share a bit of why with you guys. I’ll try to avoid spoilers, but there may be some minor ones, so fair warning.
Mary Weber’s To Best The Boys is for everyone who’s been told you can’t. You shouldn’t. It’s not your place. Do this, not that.
All Rhen Tellur wants is to study science. To find a cure for her sick mother. To help her community. She’s losing hope. People are dying. Desperate for the chance for a better education, (and to get the attention of people who could help if they were willing to care) she disguises herself as a boy and enters an all-male competition for a scholarship to university.
Guys, Rhen’s story is much like mine in some ways. When I was 17, my mom got diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. I would have done ANYTHING to find a way to cure her if I thought there was the slightest chance. Unfortunately, we all know that cancer has no cure, and there was nothing I could have done. But the pain Rhen feels helplessly watching her mother fade, unable to find any answers, that was EXACTLY how it felt. The knowledge that no matter what you do, it might not be enough. But if you can, you have to try.
I didn’t study science. It’s not something I’ve ever been drawn to or good at. Rhen isn’t he most “me” character ever, but she is one of my favorites. Because Mary got all of the emotions of not knowing how to cope with facing the loss of the person whom you love and need most (and being told you can’t do anything about it) completely right.
There’s a lot of fear. And gut-wrenching moments when you wish it was anyone else, not your mom. And the moments that make you just want to run as far away as you can in the hope that it’s not really happening, that it’s all a horrible nightmare.
And honestly, even over 5 years after losing her, there are still days when I don’t know how to cope without my mom. And no one and nothing can prepare you for any of it.
But sometimes, life brings you people who might not understand, but will walk through it with you. I’m blessed to have a few of those people and I love them dearly.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that if I could time travel, I’d give this book to my 17 year old self. It wouldn’t fix anything, but it would give me hope. It would remind me I have a future to fight for. Rhen chooses to fight for what she wants and what her society needs. Whether they think they need it or not.
I didn’t know what I wanted, or even who I was when I was 17. It’s taken me the last 3-4 years to find my way around life after having been drop-kicked into adulthood with my mom’s diagnosis right after graduated from high school. Rhen is a much stronger person than I was, in that her instant reaction is to try to fix it. I just wanted to disappear, to make it stop. But you have to get up, go on, and fight for what you can, even when people tell you it’s okay to break down, just so they can make themselves feel better by “trying to help.” You can break down, but then you have to GET. UP. (I’m not a wallower, can you tell?) People wanted me to be more obviously broken than I was. I was broken, completely, but I didn’t want to look back and say, “I let that one thing that happened keep me from living.” I don’t want to get to heaven and have my mama look at me and say “You could have done so much if you’d let yourself move on.” I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life bitter and angry because life didn’t go how I wanted it to. Life sucks. That’s just the way it is sometimes. But you can choose to wallow, or you can choose to fight. To chase joy, despite the things you’ve been through.
I’ve had a lot of people question my choices, especially my choice NOT to go to college. Just because someone thinks you should or shouldn’t do something, it doesn’t give them the right to tell you what to do with your life. As people, especially women, our choices get questioned ALL THE TIME (another great point of the book: FEMINISM). This is NOT OKAY. Our choices are no one else business.
Rhen keeps fighting for her mother, for her right to an education, and for the rights of the people she loves, despite all of the people telling her not to. We all could do with a little more of that kind of tenacity.
This book inspires me to keep going after the things that make my heart sing. I hope it does the same for you.
I’m really ramble-y today, but guys, this book is my favorite and I really hope you read it and love it too.
To Best The Boys releases March 19th!! And if you’re in SoCal they’re doing an early launch at the Ontario Teen Book Festival on Saturday March 9th! There’s preorder goodies too, so check those out! Links are on Mary’s social media pages.
I’ve read a lot of other books lately, so I’m not going to list them here or do any mini-reviews this time, but I’m going to TRY to be a little more active. Happy reading nerds!
Hobbit Queen out. ❤️😘
First off: sorry for being so absent here! Life is nuts. But, *drumroll please* I’VE BEEN WRITING!!! I’m almost halfway through writing my historical(ish) fantasy myth retelling!! I started officially writing it January 1st and can’t believe I’ve made it this far. I hope you guys want to read it someday!
In other news: there’s a book coming out later this month that I absolutely ADORE and I wanted to share a bit of why with you guys. I’ll try to avoid spoilers, but there may be some minor ones, so fair warning.
Mary Weber’s To Best The Boys is for everyone who’s been told you can’t. You shouldn’t. It’s not your place. Do this, not that.
All Rhen Tellur wants is to study science. To find a cure for her sick mother. To help her community. She’s losing hope. People are dying. Desperate for the chance for a better education, (and to get the attention of people who could help if they were willing to care) she disguises herself as a boy and enters an all-male competition for a scholarship to university.
Guys, Rhen’s story is much like mine in some ways. When I was 17, my mom got diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. I would have done ANYTHING to find a way to cure her if I thought there was the slightest chance. Unfortunately, we all know that cancer has no cure, and there was nothing I could have done. But the pain Rhen feels helplessly watching her mother fade, unable to find any answers, that was EXACTLY how it felt. The knowledge that no matter what you do, it might not be enough. But if you can, you have to try.
I didn’t study science. It’s not something I’ve ever been drawn to or good at. Rhen isn’t he most “me” character ever, but she is one of my favorites. Because Mary got all of the emotions of not knowing how to cope with facing the loss of the person whom you love and need most (and being told you can’t do anything about it) completely right.
There’s a lot of fear. And gut-wrenching moments when you wish it was anyone else, not your mom. And the moments that make you just want to run as far away as you can in the hope that it’s not really happening, that it’s all a horrible nightmare.
And honestly, even over 5 years after losing her, there are still days when I don’t know how to cope without my mom. And no one and nothing can prepare you for any of it.
But sometimes, life brings you people who might not understand, but will walk through it with you. I’m blessed to have a few of those people and I love them dearly.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that if I could time travel, I’d give this book to my 17 year old self. It wouldn’t fix anything, but it would give me hope. It would remind me I have a future to fight for. Rhen chooses to fight for what she wants and what her society needs. Whether they think they need it or not.
I didn’t know what I wanted, or even who I was when I was 17. It’s taken me the last 3-4 years to find my way around life after having been drop-kicked into adulthood with my mom’s diagnosis right after graduated from high school. Rhen is a much stronger person than I was, in that her instant reaction is to try to fix it. I just wanted to disappear, to make it stop. But you have to get up, go on, and fight for what you can, even when people tell you it’s okay to break down, just so they can make themselves feel better by “trying to help.” You can break down, but then you have to GET. UP. (I’m not a wallower, can you tell?) People wanted me to be more obviously broken than I was. I was broken, completely, but I didn’t want to look back and say, “I let that one thing that happened keep me from living.” I don’t want to get to heaven and have my mama look at me and say “You could have done so much if you’d let yourself move on.” I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life bitter and angry because life didn’t go how I wanted it to. Life sucks. That’s just the way it is sometimes. But you can choose to wallow, or you can choose to fight. To chase joy, despite the things you’ve been through.
I’ve had a lot of people question my choices, especially my choice NOT to go to college. Just because someone thinks you should or shouldn’t do something, it doesn’t give them the right to tell you what to do with your life. As people, especially women, our choices get questioned ALL THE TIME (another great point of the book: FEMINISM). This is NOT OKAY. Our choices are no one else business.
Rhen keeps fighting for her mother, for her right to an education, and for the rights of the people she loves, despite all of the people telling her not to. We all could do with a little more of that kind of tenacity.
This book inspires me to keep going after the things that make my heart sing. I hope it does the same for you.
I’m really ramble-y today, but guys, this book is my favorite and I really hope you read it and love it too.
To Best The Boys releases March 19th!! And if you’re in SoCal they’re doing an early launch at the Ontario Teen Book Festival on Saturday March 9th! There’s preorder goodies too, so check those out! Links are on Mary’s social media pages.
I’ve read a lot of other books lately, so I’m not going to list them here or do any mini-reviews this time, but I’m going to TRY to be a little more active. Happy reading nerds!
Hobbit Queen out. ❤️😘
Comments
Post a Comment