Without Merit by Colleen Hoover // Book Review

From the minute I opened this book I was captivated by Merit Voss and her quirky family. Merit likes to deal with life’s unfortunate events by collecting trophies she didn’t win. In addition to trophies, Merit has found herself a collector and keeper of family secrets. Eventually unable to carry the burden she makes a spontaneous decision to leave her family behind for good. But not before confessing each of their lies. When things don’t go as planned, she’s left to deal with the consequence of her actions and to repair the relationships that were damaged.

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Secrets of Skinny Cooking by Victoria Dwek & Shani Taub // Book Review

I’m convinced the social media “story” feature was created to take pictures of food. It’s so we can share what we’re eating in the moment without having to delete hundreds of food pics later. There’s something to be said about photographing a thoughtfully plated dish. My husband and I have gotten into arguments over him picking food off my plate before I’ve captured the perfect shot. He should know better by now.

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Waking Gods by Sylvain Neuvel // Book Review

The audiobook for Sleeping Giants was so amazing I decided to borrow Waking Gods from the library to listen to along side the text. Unfortunately, I didn’t end up enjoying it as much. It contained a lot more action, which sounds great, except it literally didn’t. There was an emptiness surrounding some of the heavier action scenes which made events feel like they were taking place inside a vacuum. Eva’s voice was supposed to be that of a child but sounded exactly like an adult playing a child. It took me out of the story every time she spoke. Despite this, I’m still interested in the story and will be picking up the next book. It’s not that I disliked it, I just didn’t love it.

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The Drive To Learn by Cornelius N. Grove // Book Review

Around this time last year I was teaching my first college course on campus. We’d been getting an influx of international students, but this was the first time I had so many East Asians in my class. They sat next to each other and behaved similarly in class — quiet but attentive. I found myself questioning the clear differences between them and my American students. Were they self-conscious about speaking English? Did I not interest them as a teacher? How come they never raised their hands to answer questions? It was because of questions like these that I jumped at the chance to review The Drive To Learn: What the East Asian Experience Tells Us about Raising Students Who Excel by Cornelius N. Grove.

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BookCon 2017 Vlog

I attended BookCon for the first time this year and made a short vlog about it. I’m still struggling with the awkwardness of talking to my camera in public spaces but I’m hoping to eventually get over that.

While rewatching this video I noticed some parts weren’t very clear. Here are a few notes to help with that:

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