Caramellunacy's TBR Excavation in 2019

After a tough year in 2018, I am back with a low goal for 2019. The focus for the digsite and this year's excavations is to curate the collection and hopefully increase the level of fieldnotes.

Excavation!



Spoils Heap!




1. Deeply, Desperately - Heather Webber
2. Slow Heat - Jill Shalvis
3. The Shakespeare Curse - J.L. Carrell
4. Pilgrims Don't Wear Pink - Stephanie Kate Strohm
5. Bridge of Scarlet Leaves - Kristina McMorris
6. The Paris Architect - Charles Belfoure
7. A Time to Kill - John Grisham
8. Chasing Darkness - Robert Crais
9. Life Among the Savages - Shirley Jackson
10. The Trouble with Flirting - Claire La Zebnik
11. The Gods of Guilt - Michael Connelly

-Rough Guide to Amsterdam
-Pocket Rough Guide to Istanbul
-DK Eyewitness Travel - Stockholm
-DK Eyewitness Travel - Top 10 Munich


Acquisitions
1. First Grave on the Right - Darynda Jones
2. Theatrical - Maggie Harcourt
3. The Pearl Thief - Elizabeth Wein
4. Love & Gelato - Jenna Evans Welch
5. Geekerella - Ashley Poston
6. Unconventional - Maggie Harcourt
7. Once and For All - Sarah Dessen

Books Read in 2019
Titles listed in italics are loans (library books or borrowed rather than TBR) and do not count towards the total.

January
Dominion - C.J. Sansom
The Fact of a Body - Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich
American Radical - Tamer Elnoury w/Kevin Maurer
1. Death Below Stairs - Jennifer Ashley
2. Life Among the Savages - Shirley Jackson
3. Chasing Darkness - Robert Crais

February
The Help - Kathryn Stockett
Ms. Marvel: No Normal (Vol. 1) - G. Willow Wilson
The Rooster Bar - John Grisham
4. David - Mary Hoffman
5. Again - Kathleen Gilles Seidel
6. A Match Made in Duty - Meara Platt
The Casual Vacancy - JK Rowling
7. First Grave on the Right - Darynda Jones

March
Origin - Dan Brown
8. Austenland - Shannon Hale
9. Truly Devious - Maureen Johnson
The List - Siobhan Vivian
The Perfume Collector - Kathleen Tessaro

April
10. The Trouble with Flirting - Claire La Zebnik
11. The Gods of Guilt - Michael Connelly
12. Theatrical - Maggie Harcourt
Fence, Vol.1 - C.S. Pacat
Fence, Vol. 2 - C.S. Pacat
13. The Austen Playbook - Lucy Parker

May
The World As It Is - Ben Rhodes
14. Little Blog on the Prairie - Cathleen Davit Bell

June
15. American Panda - Gloria Chao
Say Nothing - Patrick Radden Keefe
The Book Thief - Markus Zusak
16. Midshipman Bolitho - Alexander Kent
17. The Boy Next Door - Meg Cabot
18. Wish You Were Italian - Kristin Rae

July
Bad Blood - John Carreyrou
Furious Hours - Casey Cep
19. The Devil to Pay - K.C. Bateman
20. The Academy - Katie Sise

August

Welcome back! I hope the digsite is fruitful!

Welcome back and Happy ROOTing.

Happy excavating! May you unearth many valuable artifacts!

Welcome back, I hope it's a good reading year for you!

>3 rabbitprincess:, >4 connie53:, >5 majkia:, >6 Jackie_K:

Thanks all! I am really hoping to make more time for the excavations this year and it's always so nice to have you stop by!

Welcome back! I love the Spoils Heap, it puts such a positive note on the acquisitions!

>1 Caramellunacy: curate the collection
If this involves thinning the stacks, I'm all in with my desire to do the same! Happy excavating!

Hello caramellunacy! Happy new year and happy ROOTing.

All archaeological references are welcome. *smile*

>8 MissWatson:
I am hoping to choose any acquisitions with due care!

>9 detailmuse:
I am hoping to keep track of de-accessions (small victories!) - I have many, many and a tiny postage stamp worth of an apartment...

>10 karenmarie:
Thanks, Karen. Always happy to play Amelia Peabody / Indiana Jones!

So I finished my first book of the year, but it doesn't count for purposes of ROOTing as it was a library book, but behold fieldnotes in any event:

Artefact: Dominion by CJ Sansom

Trove: Library

Status: Returned





Fieldnotes:
London/Birmingham, Alternate 1952

Alternate History
Nazi Infighting
Resistance Cells

1 Man Bizarrely Beloved of Every Woman he Meets (with a secret)
1 Painfully Socially Anxious Geologist (with a Secret)
1 Mysterious Artist Resistance Femme Fatale (with a secret)
1 Cheerfully Naive Communist (also with a secret)

1 Unfortunate Record-Keeper Not-So-Secretly in Love with David
1 Pacifist Wife Slowly Radicalised by the Violence around Her
1 Not-So-Safe House

1 Gestapo People-Hunter Struggling to Live up to his Idealized Dead Twin
1 Ambitious Torture-Happy British Special Branch Inspector
1 American Submarine
Cyanide Capsules

1 Excellently Employed Fire-Truck
Churchill

The Short Version:
In 1940, instead of Churchill, Lord Halifax became the Prime Minister after Chamberlain stepped down. Britain surrendered after the disaster at Dunkirk and the Norway campaign and became a steadfast ally of Nazi Germany, who have a military base on the Isle of Wight. Increasingly, Mosley's Blackshirts and similar authoritarian and fascist factions are gaining power and, much as was seen in Germany, the Auxiliary Police are becoming increasingly violent in their confrontations with Communists, "Jive Boys" and union leaders. Not to mention that anti-Semitism is on the rise; and seeking closer economic ties with Germany, the UK begins their own round-up of Jews.

Our hero, David Fitzgerald, is a civil servant in the Dominions Office, who keeps his politics close to his chest. David and his wife, Sarah (who is from a pacifist family) have been growing apart after the tragic death of their son, Charlie, and David struggles to find meaning in an increasingly futile position. So when an old school friend taps David for the Resistance to photograph secret documents, David joins a cell of Resistance workers including the lovely and mysterious Slovakian artist, Natalia.

And David's big chance comes when another old school friend of his, the chronically anxious Frank Muncaster, who was badly bullied at school and trusts no one, learns a secret the Gestapo (and the British equivalent) are eager to get their hands on. David must help break Frank out of the asylum where he is being held and spirit him out of the country (or ensure he dies trying). But Germany has sent Gunther Hoth, their best Gestapo hunter of people, to track them down.

I enjoyed the thriller aspects of this story and how Sansom painstakingly built up the plausability of his alternate universe. There was a great sense of dread underlying much of the first section of the novel, especially once Gunther and Syme begin tracking Frank. Unfortunately, after a raid of the Resistance safe-house (and perhaps a bit before to be honest), the book spends rather too much time with everyone being in love with David for no apparent reason & him simply not having to actually deal with the emotional fallout of any of his decisions. If we were going to make this a simple action-based thriller, fine. But we spend a lot of time trying to build up these characters' relationships and feelings, so not having a pay-off there was disappointing. (sorry if too vague - trying to avoid spoilers!)

For me, the novel ran out of steam in the last 100 pages or so when it should have been building to a climax - it felt a bit paint-by-numbers and I just wasn't invested in the characters any more...especially when everyone kept telling me how wonderful a man David was, and I just wasn't shown anything that made me believe it...

Also, a great victory! I have de-accessioned the first two books of 2019 (though both were read in 2018):

1. Deeply, Desperately - Heather Webber - the second in the Lucy Valentine series. I read this in 2018, don't remember a thing about it & am unlikely to reread.

2. Slow Heat - Jill Shalvis - second in the Santa Barbara Heat series. Two commitment-phobes fall for each other while having a fake "for publicity" relationship that turns real. Prodded into acknowledging their love because they learn from Her) taking care of a largely abandoned nephoew and Him) rebuilidng a relationship with his alcholoci father. That is a lot of emotional energy for 315 pages & given that our hero, Wade, was the laid-back one in the previous book, I was hoping for more of a rom-com feel here...

>12 Caramellunacy: An excellently employed fire truck! I love that note.
I tried reading Dominion a couple of years ago but couldn't get into it. I think I've burned out on WW2 alternate history :-/

Great work on deaccessioning!

>14 rabbitprincess: I know it wasn't meant to be, but that Fire Truck was such a high point for me that I had to include a note!

There was definitely a lot of alternate history playing out (which involved a lot of name-dropping and explanations) that I could see being difficult to slog through if burned out! It did make me want to turn back to Connie Willis' Blackout and All Clear which I never quite finished last time I tried them many years ago, though (after I have a bit of a breather from WWII!)

I am currently working my way through two in parallel:
The Fact of a Body - a true crime / memoir that I am intrigued by, but is too dark for me to read before bed, so I am also reading

David by Mary Hoffman - a historical novel about young stonecutter Gabriele, posing for his "brother" Michelangelo's statue of the David and getting tangled up in the complicated politics of Renaissance Florence.

Continuing with the plan to deaccession books that I am unlikely to re-read, I have deaccessioned the following three today:

1. Bridge of Scarlet Leaves - Kristina McMorris
A story of starcrossed lovers torn apart by prejudices during WWII as one family is sent to Manzanar during Japanese internment. There is fighting and deprivation and very real problems, but this just wasn't the story for me.

2. The Shakespeare Curse (also called Haunt Me Still) - J.L. Carrell
I really enjoyed the first in this series Interred with Their Bones, but this one didn't gel for me in the same way. Maybe it's because our lovebirds are fighting or maybe it just seemed less plausible / more far-fetched, but I wasn't as immersed in this one (despite the glorious Scottish setting).

3. Pilgrims Don't Wear Pink - Stephanie Kate Strohm
Fun and cute, but ultimately a little too superficial for me to add to my permanent collection. I am very excited about the author's Taming of the Shrew inspired novel!

>12 Caramellunacy: You had me going on this one until I read your final paragraph. I love alternative histories and even at 3.5 stars rating I still might be tempted. I think I had Dissolution on my shelves at one point, but must have sent it to the thrift store...

Congrats on deaccessioning.

>17 karenmarie: Thanks for the encouragement - I find it incredibly tough (though I know I need to let some go in order to have room to breathe!)

I read Dissolution a while back and it reminded me to a certain extent of The Name of the Rose (though less of a struggle to read for me) - and I think there may have been an inside joke in there about that book as well.

The thing that I liked about the Shardlake novels I have read (the first four) was that each of them explored a different type of mystery:
Dissolution - a locked room mystery
Dark Fire - a quest / thriller
Sovereign - political thriller
Revelation - serial killer

I haven't read any further (maybe due for a reread!), but would be interested to see if Sansom keeps it up!

Good luck with your ROOTs this year! Btw, your name is awesome.

>18 Caramellunacy: I didn't know that about the Shardlakes. Must keep it in mind!

>19 mstrust: Best of luck with yours as well! I'm glad you like the name - my love of sweet things wanted to be front and center!

Artefact: Death Below Stairs by Jennifer Ashley(Below Stairs, Book 1)

Trove: Paperback

Status: Continue in Employment



Fieldnotes:
Mount Street, Mayfair, 1881 (Victorian)
1 No-Nonsense Cook
1 Charming Jack of All Trades with Such Many Secrets (& Son)
1 Mathematical Genius with an Impossible Name
1 Well-Meaning but Painful Offer of Adoption

1 Rather Horrid Aristocratic Employer with Dubious Financial Investments
1 Wilting Flower Melodramatic Lady of the House
1 Unconventional Spinster Sister who Prefers to Dress as a Gentleman

1 Excessively Devoted Housekeeper
1 Rather Lax Butler
1 Supercilious Valet
1 Naive Kitchen Maid

1 Corpse
Fenians

1 Rather Lovely Bridge
1 Train Journey
Queen Victoria!

Freshly Baked Bread
Countless Period Dishes

The Short Version:
I enjoyed this mystery (particularly its romantic elements) and am looking forward to more outings with the charming Daniel, his equally charming son and the rather hapless numbers whiz Mr. Elgin Thanos. That said, I would urge other readers to begin with the Prequel Novella (which I did not) which I understand introduces the characters, as it felt like background was missing, particularly between Daniel and Kat.

Artefact: Chasing Darkness by Robert Crais(Elvis Cole, Book 11)

Trove: Paperback

Status: Deaccessioned



Fieldnotes:
Laurel Canyon, Contemporary (p.2008)
1 Wildfire Evacuation that turns up
1 Apparent Suicide with Evidence of
7 Murdered Young Women

1 Private Investigator relying on
1 Formerly Proven Alibi
1 Former Bomb Squad Cop turned Detective
1 Very Secretive Task Force
Questionable Methods of Investigation
1 Nervous Defense Lawyer

1 Local Politician
1 Political Career Consultancy
1 Ambitious Deputy Chief
3 Protective Brothers
Secrets
Many, Many Twists

The Short Version:
One thing I will say for this novel, just when I would think I had figured things out, another twist came and surprised me, keeping me off-balance. I enjoyed the cleverness of the plot, though I will admit that I didn't really care much about wise-cracking Elvis Cole or taciturn Joe Pike, nor Elvis' relationship with Carol Sharkey (though perhaps I would have felt differently if I had read more in the series - though you don't need to in order to enjoy this one). Chasing Darkness is fun, and it reads a bit like a few episodes of an LA set detective show - not necessarily a bad thing if that's what you're in the mood for, but also not particularly memorable.

Artefact: Life Among the Savages by Shirley Jackson

Trove: Paperback

Status: A Cautionary Tale



Fieldnotes:
North Bennington, Vermont, 1945-early 50s
A House with Pillars
An Increasing Number of Children

1 Very Bad Child at School
1 Judgmental Teacher
Many Things Deemed Vulgar
A Rather Amusing Parent Teacher Conference Battle

1 Husband with an Air Gun
1 Oscillant Chipmunk
1 Exasperated Cat

1 Broken Furnace
1 Temperamental Car

The Short Version:
A collection of anecdotes about Shirley Jackson's life among her savages - her sometimes strange, sometimes disdainful children. There are some hilarious turns of phrase (see the above Oscillant chipmunk) and some amusing mishaps as the author pokes fun at her absentmindedness and is occasionally rather sardonic in her descriptions of her offspring. I would have enjoyed at least an instance or two where her children seemed slightly less ... awful. Though I suppose it's slightly less necessary to vent literarily when they are behaving themselves...

I need to have that one. I've enjoyed everything I've read from Jackson, all of it.

January Roundup

Artefacts Excavated: 6
of which ROOTs: 3
2019 Total Artefacts Excavated: 6
of which ROOTs: 3

Fieldnotes Completed: 4
of which ROOTs: 3
2019 Fieldnotes Submitted: 4
of which ROOTs: 3

Fieldnotes Cover:
* 67% of Current Excavations
* 100% of Current ROOTs

Spoils Heap (Deaccessions): 5
- Year total: 5
New Sites for Excavation (Acquisitions): 0
+ Year total: 0
Digsite Balance: -5

>25 mstrust: It was quite fun, and it was really interesting to glimpse little glimmers of the townsfolk in The Lottery (at least based on my long-ago memories of it) in some of the interactions she described.

>26 Caramellunacy: I've said it before, I think sometime last year, but I love your fieldnotes. They always make me smile and most times I have to find out about translations for my own TBR-pile.

February Roundup

Artefacts Excavated: 7
of which ROOTs: 4
2019 Total Artefacts Excavated: 13
of which ROOTs: 7

Fieldnotes Completed: 0
of which ROOTs: 0
2019 Fieldnotes Submitted: 4
of which ROOTs: 3

Fieldnotes Cover:
* 0% of Current Excavations
* 0% of Current ROOTs
* 31% of 2019 Excavations
* 43% of 2019 ROOTS

Spoils Heap (Deaccessions): 0
- Year total: 5
New Sites for Excavation (Acquisitions): 1
+ Year total: 1
Digsite Balance: -4

>29 Caramellunacy: Excellent stats, beautiful presentation. You're definitely ahead of the game.

March Roundup

Artefacts Excavated: 5
of which ROOTs: 2
2019 Total Artefacts Excavated: 18
of which ROOTs: 9

Fieldnotes Completed: 0
of which ROOTs: 0
2019 Fieldnotes Submitted: 4
of which ROOTs: 3

Fieldnotes Cover:
* 0% of Current Excavations
* 0% of Current ROOTs
* 22% of 2019 Excavations
* 33% of 2019 ROOTS

Spoils Heap (Deaccessions): 0
- Year total: 5
New Sites for Excavation (Acquisitions): 1
+ Year total: 1
Digsite Balance: -4

Hi! Long time, no see!

Just popping in to see what you are up to!

April Roundup

Artefacts Excavated: 6
of which ROOTs: 4
2019 Total Artefacts Excavated: 24
of which ROOTs: 13

Fieldnotes Completed: 0
of which ROOTs: 0
2019 Fieldnotes Submitted: 4
of which ROOTs: 3

Fieldnotes Cover:
* 0% of Current Excavations
* 0% of Current ROOTs
* 17% of 2019 Excavations
* 23% of 2019 ROOTS

Spoils Heap (Deaccessions): 0
- Year total: 9
New Sites for Excavation (Acquisitions): 2
+ Year total: 7
Digsite Balance: -2

At last! A fieldnote (from prior months, but nonetheless! Progress!)

Artefact: The Trouble with Flirting by Claire LaZebnik

Trove: Paperback

Status: Deaccessioned



Fieldnotes:
Mansfield College (near Portland, OR), Contemporary (p. 2013)

1 Austen Retelling (Mansfield Park)

1 Teen Theater Summer Program
3 Shakespeare Shows
1 Nominal Summer Job as Costume Assistant
1 Bit Part in Twelfth Night

1 Former Best Friend
1 Hot Best Friend's Brother
1 Handsome Flirt
1 Sophisticated Beauty
1 Queen Bee

1 Love Domino Chickenfoot
Various Configurations of a Love Triangle
Teen Drama

1 Dated Unnecessary Insensitive Comment that Kind of Ruined Everything

The Short Version:
I loved the setting at theater camp, but I may be Too Old for the Teen Hijinks. I spent a fair amount of time getting cranky at our teen heroine for shirking her summer job responsibilities in favor of hanging out with the other kids.

I liked that there was a fair amount of different configurations of dating & I quite liked Franny not being interested in "competing" over (at least one of) the pretty boys, though I do wish she had been a little more forthright herself rather than waiting to be chosen. I approved of Franny's ultimate choice (as the more charming on-page suitor), but thought a lot of the romance was a bit overblown (though emotions run high end of high school/early college).

Again, I may be Too Old. When Franny turned down her aunt's peace offering of a night in with popcorn and a black & white movie, I just couldn't relate!

Artefact: The Gods of Guilt by Michael Connelly(Mickey Haller, Book 5)

Trove: Paperback

Status: Disbarred



Fieldnotes:
Los Angeles, Contemporary (p.2013)

1 Exceedingly Unethical Manipulated Mistrial
1 Defense Attorney Unburdened by Ethics with Peter Pan Syndrome
1 Lincoln used as an Office

1 Digital Pimp
1 Bogus Murder Charge
1 Referral by the Victim

1 Overly Involved Prosecutorial Investigator
1 Threatening DEA Agent
1 Drug Lord / Sicario

Several Murder Attempts
Dangerous Subpoenas
Surprise! Witnesses and Evidence
Wannabe Grisham Moments

1 Inexplicable and Unconvincing Love Interest
Creepily Spying on Children (Parental Edition)

The Short Version:
Mickey Haller (aka The Lincoln Lawyer) picks up a new client, La Cosse, on a murder charge who was recommended Mickey by the murder victim. The client is a digital pimp, the victim one of his girls that Mickey had helped previously and for whom he had quite a soft spot. So he takes this case very personally.

The investigator for the prosecution has a fraught history and a downright antagonistic current relationship with Mickey. There is a drug lord and former sicario involved, the possibility of a crooked DEA agent and a bunch of courtroom antics that are meant to feel like Grisham but didn't make it there.

In a side plot that I'm meant to care about, Haller also creepily uses binoculars to watch his 16-yr-old daughter at soccer practice. She cut off contact after events (I'm assuming) in previous books where Haller got a DUI for an alcoholic dismissed on a technicality and the same driver crashed into one of her friends' parents' car - killing mom and daughter and costing Haller his election as DA and relationship with his daughter.

Everything about Mickey screams Peter Pan syndrome - a refusal to grow up and take responsibility for anything - a deep-seated lack of respect for the law (which he deems flexible in order to justify a raft of unethical schemes that at the most charitable interpretation skirt the rules of evidence) and an all-around sleaziness that may appeal to those looking for a chaotic anti-hero sticking it to the system, but which urgently make me want to file an ethics complaint to get him disbarred.

And yesterday, I officially de-accessioned both The Gods of Guilt and The Trouble with Flirting. Still only a drop in the Canyons of TBR, but keeping pace with my acquisitions, at least! Balance is currently at 2 more deaccessions than acquisitions - precarious, but still moving in the right direction. My goal by the end of the year is net 10 more deaccessions than acquisitions...

I obviously didn't do any more than 'fun read' The Gods of Guilt because your field notes make me wonder what I was thinking in 2014 to give it 4*.

Wannabe Grisham Moments *smile*

Congrats on de-accessioning two books. Two is more than none, and as you say, moving in the right direction.

>38 karenmarie:

I am glad you enjoyed it more than I did! I think the plotting on The Gods of Guilt was pretty impressive, actually.

It's just that unethical fictional lawyers (or non-fictional, I guess) is one of those sins that I have a hard time forgiving, so when I first met our Lincoln Lawyer when he's cheating the system to get his guilty client off (and it's the cheating that bothers me), he didn't have much of a chance to redeem himself in my eyes...

>36 Caramellunacy: Status: Disbarred
Haha, nice customization!

I have The Lincoln Lawyer still to ROOT someday...

I have been stuck in a reading slump and have been really depressed and a bit panic attacky this summer. There are a lot of stressors at the moment, personal, health, family, work, so I haven't been reading as much, reviewing as much, anything as much, really.

But I am here with 3 more books to deaccession! Incremental progress is still progress!

The Devil to Pay - K.C. Bateman.
A historical romance set in Renaissance Northern Italy. Our heroine is Cara di Montessori - a young heiress who has been indulged in learning "manly" activities such as swordplay and similar but isn't comfortable or skilled at more traditional female virtues. (Side note - this is usually a trope I am fine with, but she isn't shown to be very good at these more masculine skills either in terms of strategy or speed compensating for her smaller size, for example, so this just seemed like a lot of "Not Like Other Girls" and extremely irritating.) Her uncle has killed her father and wants to kill her / force her into marriage with his son/her cousin for the lands that she loves. She escapes and runs to her dad's "friend" the mercenary known as "Il Diavolo" who is clearly modeled quite closely on Cesare Borgia.

The hero is Alessandro del Sarto, Il Diavolo - the titular Devil to Pay. As a mercenary, he refuses to help her out of friendship to her father or honor or anything, but expects to be paid. She has nothing since her estate is now in her uncle's greedy grasp. She suggests that she can pay him if he succeeds - he wisely is having none of it. His counteroffer is that she should act as his hostess and share his bed for a week? two? and then he'll marry her off to the highest bidder. None of this makes any sense, but apparently he's had a thing for her because of the letters she used to write her dad and also some weird gross encounter they had when she was 16?

Their dynamic is not one of my favorites (feels quite old-skool) with him being alternately annoyed and smugly condescendingly amused by her "feistiness". He's got some bad PTSD, there is a lot of him making it very clear that he absolutely *could* rape her if he wanted to and she couldn't stop him, but he *chooses* not to. Nope, Nope, NOPE! Anyway, there are a lot of stupid misunderstandings, a lot of hissy fits thrown by both parties and a lot of incomprehensible given the circumstances declarations of love. It all ends with a big siege, him riding to her rescue when her evil uncle tries to kill/rape her (EW!) and one final temper tantrum with lots of moping and hurt feelings all around. This can go.

David - Mary Hoffman
A historical novel set in Renaissance Florence. Gabriele goes to Florence to hang out with his milk brother Michelangelo and to work as a stone cutter. Michelangelo uses him as a model for his famous statue and Gabriele sleeps around and gets himself involved in double-crossing Renaissance Florence politics. The political machinations are a bit too complicated and a bit too involved for the amount of page time they are given. His love triangles are better set out but he's really a bit of a jerk to everyone. There is a massive riot around the statue, murders are committed, faces are punched. It's quite a soap opera, but more eye-rolling for me than popcorn.

Little Blog on the Prairie -Cathleen Davitt Bell
Genevieve Welsh had better things to do this summer than spend it pretending like it was 1890 on the American Frontier. But her family joins several others at a re-enactment style camp. She texts her friends updates on her smuggled in cell phone & crushes on the handsome boy Caleb in the next clearing. It's a cute story and I liked the descriptions of frontier life from a modern perspective, but not one that I need to keep.

>41 Caramellunacy: Ugh, feeling panic attacky is the worst, especially when there are multiple factors...for me, it makes it much harder to pin down the one reason that's *really* the straw breaking the camel's back -- if I deal with that one, it usually helps. Sending supportive vibes.

I hope you find something that will get you out of the reading slump!

>41 Caramellunacy: I hope you feel better soon. Panic attacks are not nice at all.

I hope you're coming out of depression and feeling panicky. I try to read my way out of depressions, sometimes successfully, sometimes unsuccessfully.

And, I hope your reading slump is over, too.

Feeling better, CL?