Backlog Review: Amina’s Voice

Posted on February 28, 2020March 2, 2020 by Plaid_Reader

One of my favorite Hena Khan books, Amina’s Voice is one of those books I re-read at least every couple of months, it’s so positive and sweet.

Amina’s Voice by Hena Khan

Pakistani-American Muslim girl Amina isn’t sure about all the changes middle school is bringing. Amina doesn’t like the spotlight, she’s got stage fright from a past experience on stage and despite wanting to sign up for a school concert she can’t get past it.

It doesn’t matter what her best friend Soojin says about her voice is better than most everyone in the school. Soojin is one of the only ones who know she can sing and Amina wants to keep it that way.

Amina and Soojin have a bond over shared experiences they are used to be the only ones with names no one can pronounce and who have different cultural backgrounds from the students around them.

But with Soojin’s family’s citizenship ceremony coming up. Soojin is talking about changing her name to something more ‘American’ and Amina isn’t sure how to feel about that, she likes Soojin as Soojin. Plus if Soojin is changing, does that mean she should be too?

Plus Soojin starts to let a ‘cool girl’ Emily hang out with them at lunch. Emily and her friend Julie had been mean to Amina and Soojin in the past so Amina isn’t sure why Soojin is now willing to look past those old wrongs.

If all that isn’t enough her uncle is coming to visit from Pakistan, the visit is very important to her father so he wants Amina and her brother to be on their best behavior, and he’s staying for three months! But when her uncle arrives it is clear he doesn’t share some of her parents’ beliefs, especially about music. This makes Amina wonder if her love for music is wrong.

When Amina accidentally reveals one of Emily’s secrets it drives a rift between her and Soojin and Emily that Amina doesn’t know how to fix.

When her local mosque is vandalized it puts everything in perspective, but will Amina be able to solve the rifts in her personal life and use her voice to bring together her community?

This OwnVoices novel is by multiple award-winning author Hena Khan author of It’s Ramadan, Curious George, Golden Domes and Silver Lanterns and More to the Story.

Pondathon, Recommendations

Pondathon: It’s Time to Party

Posted on February 28, 2020February 28, 2020 by Plaid_Reader

For this challenge for the Pondathon, we had to talk about a diverse book, even though this one doesn’t come out till September I’m excited about it because I loved the first novel by author Kelly Yang, Front Desk

Three Keys (A Front Desk Novel)

Amazon: Three Keys Pre-Order

Mia Tang is excited to have the best year ever.

After a whole lot of drama, she and her parents are the proud owners of the Calivista Motel. Mia even gets to run the front desk with her best friend Lupe. Her writing is also finally getting somewhere.

But sixth grade gives her a dose of reality when:

Mia’s new teacher doesn’t like her writing all that much and her whole class finds out about her living situation.
The motel is struggling and Mia has to answer to many worried investors.
And with a new immigration law looming, it threatens everyone and everything in Mia’s life.

But if anyone has the key to getting through this it’s Mia and her friends, Mia may not have the best year ever but she’s still ready to face life’s challenges and come out a winner.

So go ahead and pre-order Three Keys, because anything by Kelly Yang is sure to be a winner!

backlog reviews, Recommendations, Reviews

Backlog Reviews: The Keeper of the Lost Cities: Neverseen

Posted on February 26, 2020February 22, 2020 by Plaid_Reader

In my continued backlog reviews, I’m focusing on the next book in Shannon Messenger’s The Keeper of The Lost Cities series. The fourth book Neverseen is also one of my favorites.

TW: Mention of torture, and murder.

Spoilers for Neverseen

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After the events of the last book, Sophie and her friends are on the run from the Elvin Council and hide with the mysterious organization that helped create Sophie, The Black Swan.

Sophie and her friends don’t exactly trust The Black Swan, after all, the organization has refused to reveal who they are, and put Sophie and her friends in danger multiple times. Sophie also isn’t looking forward to working closely with her creators.

The group ends up spending some time in Florence, a human city, also known as a Forbidden City to the elves, trying to solve The Black Swan‘s clue about their hideout. On the way, they find out someone may have been following them in their journey.

But even when The Black Swan reveals their identities, things are still a mystery. However, they offer to share a memory Sophie has been trying to trigger since the second book and the two enter into a rocky alliance. Sophie does meet someone new that she trusts while staying with the Black Swan, a gnome named Calla. Sophie learns that Calla was a part of Project Moonlark, the project that helped create Sophie and Sophie finds herself becoming friends with the kind gnome.

However, the rest of The Black Swan wants the group to focus on lessons and strengthing their skills. Why? They are going to rescue Prentice from Exile, the Elvin prison where he was sent after his mind was broken. Now that Sophie can heal minds healing Prentice might just hold the answers they need to find the rebels. But Prentice isn’t the only thing the group has to worry about.

When a mysterious plague starts effecting the gnomes, residents of the Lost Cities and helpers to the elves in exchange for protection. Sophie worries that something bigger might be afoot with the orges and that it might have something to do with her reading the orge king’s mind in the last book.

But when the raid on Exile doesn’t go as plan Sophie must make a bargain that puts her and her friends in danger at the elves school for hopeless cases, Exillium. While attending she meets two mysterious elves who may hold clues about the plague, if only Sophie can get them to trust her enough to reveal them.

As the plague worsens Sophie must find the answers to save her new friend and the gnomes that live in the Lost Cities but are she and her group ready for a betrayal that hits close to home for more than one of Sophie’s friends.

Review:

This is one of my favorite books of the series because of a lot of characters I really like getting introduced, including The Black Swan’s collective. The group also gets closer and certain issues between different characters are resolved from previous books. I’d say however it is one of the sadder books of the series though I won’t say why.

Five Favorite Things:

Calla, she’s just a great character and the bond she and Sophie share is really sweet.
We get to see more of the group interacting with each other.
We get to see more of one of the parents of the group.
Two new, favorite characters are introduced.
Sophie learns more about her past.

Overall I really enjoyed the book, it has got some mentions of physical violence, but nothing too over the top so I think it would be fine for a mature middle schooler.

Photo by Magda Ehlers from Pexels

Monthly Reads, Pondathon, Reviews

Review: The Dark and Deep Blue

Posted on February 24, 2020February 29, 2020 by Plaid_Reader

My first graphic novel of the year and boy is it a good one. The Deep and Dark Blue is one of my favorite pieces of fiction. Period. Of the last few years. Why?

The Deep & Dark Blue by Niki Smith

Below are spoilers for the book

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Synopsis

Twins Hawke and Grayson are part of a noble house, their grandfather is about to name their cousin the new head of the house. When a political coup happens and another family member takes over, the two boys have to flee.

The hide where no one would expect them, in an order of women, called the Communion of the Blue an order of magical women. Within the Communion, they are Grayce and Hanna, but while Grayce seems to take to the order like a fish to water, Hanna has a hard time. Grayce has never been comfortable being seen as a boy, and being in the Communion of the Blue feels like coming home for her. She learns how to spin the magical blue wool that controls the different elements in their world and finally finds her place.

Meanwhile, Hawke is having a tough time settling in, he meets an old friend who recognizes him from when they were children. She notes he needs to shave if he wants to keep up his disguise and she informs him that the family member who is responsible for the coup is coming for a blessing from the Communion of the Blue. Before they are officially made head of the noble house.

The twins know that the family member is really after a magical tapestry which shows the real heir of each noble house. The Communion of the Blue has a copy of the tapestry burned during the coup. Through this tapestry, they learned their cousin may be alive and hatch a rescue to take back their house and their family. Grayce though is reluctant to go back.

Their friend from childhood points out that Hawke hasn’t realized the change in Grayce, how she’s finally happy with who she is, the way she never was back when she was thought of as a boy.

Hawke apologizes to Grayce, and Grayce despite her reluctance goes with Hawke to help him find their cousin and help him take back his place as heir. But things are more complicated as they seem, and the Communion of the Blue may be involved.

When it comes down to proving who is the rightful heir before their relative is crowned, Grayce’s new skills she learned in the Communion of the Blue will prove to be the key to saving everything.

Review:

Literally so SWEET. The Communion of the Blue is where Grayce flourishes and the way it was described made me want to join. A sisterhood of magical women dying and spinning yarn that can cause magic in the world. Sign me up! But I think my favorite thing is the fact that Sister Marta the leader of the order is accepting of Grayce even after she is outed as being born male. The magical tapestry even changes to reflect who Grayce truly is, its so wonderful.

Five Favorite Things:

Sister Marta provides a great representation of a woman of color in power. In fact, the sisters of the Communion of the Blue are very diverse and Grayce and Hawke’s friend from childhood is also a person of color.
Grayce’s whole character. She’s so genuine.
The information about what the Communion of the Blue does, I love a well explained magical system.
The magical tapestry acknowledging Grayce’s gender.
The fact that Grayce gets to be the hero at one point.

Overall this is a great book with trans and POC representation and my favorite book of February so far.

Amazon: The Dark and Deep Blue

Pondathon

New Side Quest Available – Aunty Buaya is Here!

Posted on February 23, 2020February 22, 2020 by Plaid_Reader

The Pondathon has fallen a bit by the wayside as I’ve just been rereading, but the prompt for this blog seemed fairly easy so I thought I’d go ahead and try it. You have to talk about the longest book you’ve ever read.

If you do you are helping the tank character called Aunty Buaya

She’s a retired paladin who is coming out of retirement to help the pond characters fight the darkness that is taking over the pond.

Minor Spoilers Ahead for Legacy
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The Keeper of the Lost Cities: Legacy

This is the newest book in The Keeper of the Lost Cities series. It clocks in at 789 pages so I’m not sure it’s the longest in the series but it’s one of the longest. It’s the eight book in Shannon Messenger’s New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling Keeper of the Lost Cities series.

The series focuses on Sophie Foster and her friends. This book specifically has Sophie and her friends reeling after one of their group is taken by the enemy, The Neverseen. In the book Sophie and her friends are finally seen as equals by the Elvin council after years of strife but what does all that responsibility mean, and will Sophie and her friends be able to stop the enemy’s plans and save their friend in the process.

Sophie wants to know who her biological parents are, but the Black Swan, who created her won’t tell her and it’s essential to the match, where elves are given lists of who they can marry, so its essential information if she wants to be with Fitz. But Mr. Forkle doesn’t seem to think so. He sees staying single for centuries as a solution which is why Sophie starts to investigate the issue on her own, with Keefe’s help.

Just when she’s about to start working on it, the Council offers her a unique position in the nobility, she will be a Regent and a leader of a team of her friends, and Stina Heks, her frienemy. They will be responsible for helping the council with some of the same concerns that The Black Swan has about the dwarves and their missing friend Tam’s ability as a Shade being used against them.

But Sophie isn’t the only one with blank spots in her past, Keefe’s mother, Lady Gisela the leader of the Neverseen, erased some of his memories and wants him to face up to something called his ‘legacy’. When their friend Tam warns he’s been ordered to kill Keefe, Sophie must do everything she can to keep Keefe out of the line of fire. But Keefe may be a part of something much bigger than Sophie can even imagine so keeping him out of the line of fire may be impossible.

Sophie is also trying to put together a plan to face the dwarves and figure out how to be the leader of her new team called Team Valiant. All while Keefe is throwing mind-bending ideas about who her biological parents might be and she is trying to be Fitz’s girlfriend.

Keeping everything in balance seems impossible especially when Mr. Forkle throws her new information about the fact that one of her abilities may be malfunctioning and she may have to risk her life to get it to reset, again.

But none of them can stop the showdown that is coming with the enemy, and Keefe’s legacy is coming for him whether he likes it or not, will Sophie be able to keep Keefe, herself, and her friends safe, or will everything fall apart?

This book may be long but it’s also one of my favorites and I can’t wait till book 8.5 comes out in November!

Amazon: Legacy

Weekly Wrap-ups

Weekly Review 2/16/20-2/22/20

Posted on February 22, 2020February 22, 2020 by Plaid_Reader

How has everyone’s week been? Mine has been pretty productive I know I’ve done at least 6 posts in advance for the blog. Plus I’ve kind of been obsessively been watching my numbers for the blog as opposed to last month, viewers have already beat January and I’ve got a week to go, I just need to get a few more visitors. So please come visit the blog.

Reading

Honestly, this week while productive has been a little mentally tough for me, so I stuck with re-reading some old favorites.

Nightfall

Flashback

I promise to have the backlog review of these up along with the rest of the series up sometime in March.

Gaming

I beat Pokemon Shield! It took me like literally ten tries for the final battle with Leon, but I did it, then I beat all the post-credit stuff too, now I get to explore Galar and build more teams of Pokemon. I’m really excited to play more of the game even though I’ve beat it. I want to try and fill my Pokedex, plus there will an expansion pass coming out in the summer and winter of this year.

However finishing it has me thinking about the next game on my mind, Animal Crossing New Horizons. It’s not out till March 30th, but I already can’t wait. I’ll probably be playing Breath of the Wild until then, but Animal Crossing is the next game up that I’m happy for.

Crochet and Friendship Bracelets

Once upon a time before I had my psychotic episode I was very much into fiber arts, so its something I’m trying to get back into. I also bought the supplies for making friendship bracelets and have started making simple patterns with those.

Writing and Adobe

So with my tax return, I gifted myself with Scrivener to have something to better allow myself to work on my WIP. It’s proving really productive so far. My parents also helped me with the remaining portion of my tax money to get a new iPad. It’s a big 7th generation on so it’s really helping my old eyes, and reminding me I need to go to the eye doctor.

A friend from a no-profit is also sharing their login to their Adobe software, and SO MANY PROGRAMS, so I can finally try and start attempting to make graphics for the blog. Along with 10,000 other things these programs do. I’m very happy creatively.

Mental Health

Ugh, the one bad spot in an otherwise great week. My disability case has hit a snag, so I’ve got to talk over some stuff with my therapist and see if my disability case has a future, or if I should just go back to school. I really think not working has helped me, but the state I’m in is requiring a lot of extra hoops to jump through, so it’s getting me down a little. Happy stories welcome, also cute pictures and good news.

Coming Soon

What can you expect from the end of February to the beginning of March? More backlog reviews as I catch up on reviewing all the stuff I read before I didn’t have a blog. A post about the Pondathon ending, more Pokemon reads tag stuff, and a YARC based TBR for next month.

Thanks again everyone for reading, and getting the numbers for the blog higher than ever in February, I’m thankful for every single reader and visitor!

Pondathon, Reviews

Review: The Girl with the Dragon Heart

Posted on February 21, 2020February 29, 2020 by Plaid_Reader

This is the second in a loosely connected trilogy be Stephaine Burgis. The universe is the same, but the characters that the book focuses on are different with each book.

The Girl with the Dragon Heart

The Girl with the Dragon Heart is about Silke, Aventurine‘s best friend who helped her find her way as a human in the first book. Aventurine also shows up in this book though mostly as a background character. The Girl with the Dragon Heart focuses on Silke’s search for a place to call home. Silke thinks she’s found a home at The Chocolate Heart, but after being a refugee to the kingdom and an orphan, she’s grown to distrust anything that isn’t permanent and The Chocolate Heart could shut down any day.

Instead, Silke is looking for somewhere safe, that will stand the test of time, so when The Crown Princess of the kingdom offers her a position that will earn her a place in the palace permanently Silke is eager to accept. The crown princess is looking for someone who can be a spy on some visiting royalty, someone who knows how to spin a story and get people talking. Exactly what Silke is good at.

It doesn’t matter that the position is dangerous, Silke will be a spy on the fairy royalty from Elfenwald, who have come out from underground for the first time in a hundred years to broker a treaty with the kingdom. Silke tries not to let her own history with the fairies get away from accomplishing her mission. But she still plans to find out about some of the mysteries from her own past that involve the fairies

The fairies seem to be offering an alliance, with riches untold and magical protection for the kingdom. But Silke knows there is more to what the fairies are doing and has a secret mission of her own, find out what happened to her parents who disappeared when her refugee caravan was traveling through Elfenwald six years earlier.

But soon Silke learns the fairies are after the dragons and vows to protect Aventurine who is in the castle helping make chocolate for the visit. But dragons are stubborn and tough to protect and soon Silke and Aventurine find themselves in a world of trouble with the faries threatening to take them back underground along with their unlikely companion the crown princesses younger sister, Sofia.

The trio finds their way out of the fairies grip, but must find a way to rescue their friends and family, Silke has always been a good storyteller, but will she be able to talk her way out of this mess and save everyone she loves in the process and will she truly find the home she’s been looking for?

Review

This was A Mighty Girl Best Book of the Year for 2019, and I can see why filled with female friendship unlikely families and strong heroines, it is one of my favorite books of 2020, so far along with The Dragon with a Chocolate Heart.

Five favorite things:

Silke and Aventurine’s friendship.
The role of The Chocolate Heart owners Marina and Horst in Silke’s life.
The fairies were cool villains.
Silke’s complicated history with her brother Dieter and the resolution to their conflicts.
More page time for Princess Sofia, the main character in the next book The Princess Who Flew with Dragons.

Overall, this book was a solid 4.5 stars and I can’t wait to read the next book in the series.

Amazon: The Girl With the Dragon Heart

Photo by Kristina Paukshtite from Pexels

backlog reviews, Recommendations, Reviews

Backlog Reviews: Keeper of the Lost Cities: Everblaze

Posted on February 19, 2020February 6, 2020 by Plaid_Reader

Another review focusing on my favorite series, as I try to get through my super-long backlog of reviews. Everblaze is actually one of my favorite books in the series, I think it helps the characters shift and grow in ways they need to for later in the series.

Spoilers for Everblaze below:

TW: death

Picking up where The Keeper of the Lost Cities: Exile left off, The Keeper of the Lost Cities: Everblaze finds Sophie Foster is facing problems both at home and with her friends. Now that she can do mind healings, healings that bring a person back from a coma-like state which destroys their mind and memories called a break.

This ability is coming under fire from the Council, who are concerned about who it should and should not be used on, especially when it comes to the person who helped protect Sophie’s existence, Prentice.

Not only that but the rebels may be closing in, when Sophie finds a tracker on her alicorn friend Silveny, it’s clear that the rebels can get anywhere they want and that they are after Silveny. They also keep finding a way to track Sophie, and when she find out that their enemies, the orges may be involved the stakes become higher.

With The Black Swan ignoring her calls for help, Sophie and her friends are on their own to solve the mystery of how the rebels keep finding them. The answers may be more heartbreaking than any of them can handle.

But this isn’t Sophie’s only problem, while the Council won’t approve the mind healing for Prentice, they approve it for Fintan, the elf who helped start the Everblaze fires in the first Keeper of the Lost Cities. Since he kept his memories from Sophie and Alden during his memory break, the Council thinks Sophie will have another shot at secrets that will lead them to the rebels.

But when an accident occurs, one that shakes up the Elvin world and places the blame of Sophie, it leaves her willing to take risks that land her in a world of trouble and nearly start a war.

With the Elvin world trying to recover from the shock of the accident, they must also find a proper punishment for Sophie for nearly starting a war. The Black Swan finally starts communicating, but the answers they provide are going to change everything.

When Sophie’s punishment is an awful ability restricting circlet which her friend Dex made by accident, Sophie must sit on the sidelines as her friends take the risks for The Black Swan.

But Sophie finds a project while she’s limited by the circlet, trying to find Grady and Edaline’s daughter Jolie’s connection to The Black Swan, something that Prentice showed her when she tried to read his mind in The Keeper of the Lost Cities: Exile. She may discover that the rebels are closer than she ever imagined. And the secret she discovers will shake up not only her family but the world.

Sophie and her friends have made themselves public enemy number one, and the Council will soon be after them. Sophie’s friend Keefe must face a life-changing secret, and everything the group of friends knows about the world will change. But first, they have to survive a showdown with the rebels, who they now know as the Neverseen, and it’s not clear whether or not if everyone will make it out alive.

Review

This is one of my favorite books in the series, mostly because Sophie and her friends get closer. After The Black Swan shuts them out they have to rely on each other, Sophie also gets closer with her guardians, Grady and Edaline. In this book you can start seeing the beginning of the great friendships and family connections you’ll see later in the series.

5 Favorite Things

The way Sophie’s friends help her out and they start to form a cohesive group.
Biana more of a part of this book as she and Sophie get over some of the drama that happened in the previous two book.
Keefe appears more in this book.
The larger Elvin world is introduced more.
More of Grady and Edaline.

Overall this book is a solid 4.5 and was one of my favorite books from last year.

Pokemon Reads, Recommendations

Pokemon Reads Tag-Water Type

Posted on February 17, 2020February 6, 2020 by Plaid_Reader

Hello everyone, I hope you’ll like these posts. I’m starting with water-type, one of the three basic types you get to choose a starter Pokemon from at the start of each game. The signature color of water-type Pokemon is generally blue. Some water-type Pokemon you might be familiar with are:

Squirtle Psyduck

And Eveee’s water type evolution

Vaporeon

The water type has always calmed me down. Even though it has some pretty powerful Pokemon and evolutions, Water Gyms are generally one of the first gyms you have to deal with in a game.

Books that remind me of the water type include books set around water, books about mermaids and books set by the sea.

Books:

1)Maybe a Mermaid

In Maybe a Mermaid, Practical Anthoni Gillis doesn’t believe in fairies or unicorns. She is instead looking for something more substantial like a True Blue friend. Something that has been hard to find in the last five years of bouncing from town to town with her mom.

But a summer at Thunder Lake at the Showboat Resort give her a chance to look for a friend. She even has a checklist for how to do it. She doesn’t have time for rumors about the supposed Boulay Mermaid.

But as she gets drawn into local gossip, and she finds out her mother may not be telling the truth about everything. She has to decide if she wants to stick to her list or jump into a summer where everything isn’t so certain.

Amazon: Maybe a Mermaid

2)The Scorpio Races

A book about water horses had to make the list. In The Scorpio Races, Puck Connolly is the first girl to ever compete in the Scorpio Races, a dangerous race where riders try and keep control of unstable water horses until they reach the finish line. Some people live, some people die, all in all it’s super dangerous, but Puck has a family to think about, and she has no idea what she’s in for.

She’s also facing off against nineteen-year-old returning champion Sean Kendrick who has secrets of his own. Will Sean and Puck be able to keep control? Or will they lose their lives to the power of the ocean?

Amazon: The Scorpio Races

3)Shouting at the Rain

In Shouting at the Rain, Delsie loves tracking the weather. But recently all the storms seem to be in her life instead of out on the ocean around Cape Cod where she lives with her Grammy. She’s wondering what it would be like to have a ‘normal’ family, and mourning the friend who has outgrown her.

Her community helps support her and she finds a ray of sunshine in her new friend Ronan, who is caring but also has some storms in his past. Over the course of a summer the two traipse around Cape Cod and explore how to weather the storms life throws at you. Ronan and Delsie explore they both learn what it means to be angry versus sad, broken versus whole, and abandoned versus loved. And that, together, they can weather any storm.

Amazon: Shouting at the Rain

4)A Swirl of Ocean

In A Swirl of Ocean, twelve-year-old summer feels connected to the ocean. Summer has lived in the same town Barnes Bluff since she was two years old and was found on the beach, by Lindy. It’s been just the two of them since then, but lately, Summer has began to worry about her past and whether her place with Lindy is really where she belongs.

After going for a swim one night and getting caught in a riptide, Summer starts to dream about a girl her age. Everyone tries to convince Summer the girl is a figment of her imagination, and Summer isn’t sure either, all she knows is that the girl, Tink, feels familiar.

After dreaming of Tink again Summer is sure she is connected to her past. She sees Tink having some of the same struggles she’s currently having, her family growing away from her and her friends starting to pair off. Summer must face changes in her own evolving home life and with the help of her family come to terms with her past.

Amazon: A Swirl of Ocean

What are your favorite books about, storms or the water or ocean?

Weekly Wrap-ups

Weekly Review 2/9/20-2/16/20

Posted on February 15, 2020February 17, 2020 by Plaid_Reader

This week has been pretty productive. I did a lot of things, reading wasn’t one of them. However, I’m still ahead with my reading goal so I’m okay with taking a sort of week off. I did finish one graphic novel however and it was amazing.

The Deep & Dark Blue by Niki Smith

My review for it should be up in a week or so, and unless something amazing comes along I can already tell it’s going to be my favorite book this month.

Baking

I made a double chocolate cake from scratch which I haven’t done in 4-5 years. I haven’t actually done any baking in 4-5 years since I had a pretty serious psychotic episode. I’ve been working on recovery since then and I finally feel well enough to get back to one of my favorite hobbies. If any of you have any of your favorite recipes to suggest just let me know in the comments.

Tarot

I’ve also done tarot readings almost every day which I find really fun. I’m going to start working on doing tarot reading for other people via Twitter, just to get adjusted to reading others. So if you’re interested in a reading let me know in the comments, I do everything except readings on love and relationships.

Writing

I’ve been writing a lot for here. I’ve got all my posts for February done and I’m starting on my posts for March. I’m also writing on a fiction piece I put down last year and this week I finally found a solution for a writing problem I’d had with the piece for months.

Gaming

I’m almost finished with Pokemon Sheild I just have one more boss to beat. I’m kind of surprised I got so far, right now I’m working on leveling up my Pokemon to beat the final boss. So hopefully by next week I should be done and just doing fun stuff after winning the game.

Mental Health

My mental health was pretty good this week and I think my productivity showed it. I did have some migraines, so that left me not feeling like reading for a few days. I’ve got to call some doctors next week to talk about my migraines and my lawyer to talk about disability paperwork. But other than that I think I did pretty good this week.

Thoughts for Next Week

I’d like to read two books next week and bake again, I’d also like to get engagement up on the blog and maybe start being more involved with other blogs and on social media to get more traffic towards the site. I’m trying to learn more about SEO to see if that helps too.

What do you do for your blog to help engagement?

Photo by Jessica Lewis from Pexels