Candy Bunny Reader

  This past week I was also reading Do Nothing by Celeste Headlee . It is a nonfiction book written by an NPR journalist. This book is all about how we've become so obsessed with productivity as a society and what we can do to slow down and feel less stressed out. Since this is a nonfiction book, I review nonfiction very differently from fiction, unless it is a memoir. That is why I do not have a spoiler free tag, because there's really nothing to spoil. This is a general information/self-help book, and I will give mostly general ideas of what the book is about and how the author organizes the information. It is up to you if you want to read this book to get all the details. I really like the way the book is written. Celeste Headlee has a very approachable writing style that I think general audiences can read from. The first half of the book is a detailed history on how particularly American culture has become very obsessed with productivity. At the same time, the author

  I also happened to read and finish We Are Okay by Nina LaCour this past week. It's a YA Contemporary novel exploring grief and loneliness.  The main character, Marin, a college freshman living in New York, gets special permission to stay at her dorm room over winter break while everyone else is gone, the only other person in the building being the housekeeper, Tommy. Marin does not want to go back to visit her home in San Francisco for some reason. Marin is forced to face her past when her best friend (and ex-girlfriend) Mabel comes to visit. Mabel wants to know why Marin has avoided her since they graduated high school, to the point of moving across the country and avoiding her texts and calls. Over the course of the book we learn what happened to Marin and the big turning point that made her want to leave everything behind.  The book is written with chapters alternating from the present day to flashbacks of Marin's life in San Francisco. We learn that she was raised by her

  The Girl from the Sea by Molly Ostertag is a YA Graphic Novel about a teenage girl named Morgan Kwon who lives in a house on a small island near a small town near the mainland somewhere in Canada with her divorced mother and little brother. She has a relatively normal life there and has a group of friends she describes "is something out of a 90s teen movie."  Morgan is also a closeted lesbian, as she is scared to come out to her friends and family.  In the beginning as she is texting her friends on making plans to meet up for the weekend, she trips over a rock and falls into the sea. She is rescued by a selkie named Keltie. Morgan thinks it is all just a dream, and as a joke she kisses Keltie. It turns out the whole thing was real, and Keltie temporarily becomes a human girl. She starts hanging out with Morgan and they even  start dating. Morgan at first has to keep her dates with Keltie a secret from everyone, and at the same time, Keltie has a problem of her own: she has

  Well I haven't updated this blog in a while, but that was because I was trying to find the best way to describe my experience with reading Loveless by Alice Oseman.  This story is about a college freshman named Georgia Warr, who despite loving things like romance novels and romance movies, she has never had a crush on anyone and has never dated anyone, let alone kissed someone. She feels as if she's missing out on life, especially when everyone her age, including her own two friends Pip (real named Felipa) and Jason, has already gone on so many dates.  With the help of her new friend and roommate Rooney, Georgia tries experimenting with whom she could possibly like. So she first tries to date a guy. She starts with her friend Jason (which fails drastically), and then she thinks she might like girls, so she and Rooney kiss, but she ends up upsetting her friend Pip, who already had a crush on Rooney.  After a conversation about aromanticism and asexuality with her college ment

  I just finished reading Mandy by Julie Andrews. (Yes, that Julie Andrews. Did you know she was an author as well as an actress?) I gave this book 5 out of 5 stars. This was such a sweet book! This gave off the same heartwarming, cottagecore vibes similar to Anne of Green Gables, which is one of my favorite books of all time.  Mandy is about an orphan girl named, well, Mandy, who is ten years old and has lived in an orphanage all of her life. Despite her relatively normal an non-chaotic life in the orphanage, she's had a lingering sadness in the back of her mind because she always felt that something was missing from her life.  One day while exploring the woods behind the orphanage, she comes across an old abandoned cottage. She decides to make it her own personal sanctuary. So she starts a project to tidy up the cottage and grow a garden there, but she has to keep it secret, as she has felt she finally found a place to call her own and doesn't want to share it with anyone. 

  Another post of my art! Another painting. You might or might not remember in my last artwork post I mentioned I took watercolor classes with a local artist in my area named Ryan Fox (@rfox90 on Instagram). The very first thing I painted in that class was this picture of these apples! I am very proud of this painting because I applied new watercolor techniques for the first time while painting it, like making some areas lighter to create shine (as you can see on the apples) and blending colors in the background (another way to shade, or just to have an interesting background that's not just one solid color).  I can't wait to show off more of my paintings! Are any of you also artists?

As of right now I do not use Goodreads, but that might change in the future. However, I still do use the star-rating system to rate books that I read. Here is how I rate my books! 5 ⭐s-New favorite book! Highly recommend it. This means the story was beautifully well written, the story resonated with me very deeply, it had everything I love seeing in books. The book was so wonderful words can't even express it. Go read it right now. It also doubles as I now have a new favorite author. 4  ⭐s-I enjoyed the book. I liked it, but not to the point where I loved it. I did still have some problems with it. Either minor problematic elements or just things I found annoying/could've been done better. But overall it was still a good book and I recommend it! Just with a few small caveats.  3  ⭐s-I didn't like this book, but I didn't dislike it either. It's in this weird zone where I'm not sure whether or not I liked it. The book did a lot of things I liked, but it equally di

TW: Spanking as a punishment (including threats), Racial Stereotypes, Eating Disorders I read the first book of the classic middle grade series Mrs. Piggle Wiggle by Betty MacDonald during these last few days. It's a short, quick, simple little book. There are only eight chapters. Mrs. Piggle Wiggle is an eccentric and friendly woman who likes kids. She invites the kids in her neighborhood for tea parties and just to play. Not only do the kids like her, but their parents do, too. That's because she seems to understand how kids are and gives them unique "cures" to their bad behavior when the parents don't know how to deal with them when they act naughty.  Except for the first chapter where we are introduced to Mrs. Piggle Wiggle, every chapter is strictly formulaic: some kid is misbehaving, the parents phone Mrs. Piggle Wiggle on their problem, then Mrs. Piggle Wiggle gives them advice or objects that will get the kid to realize their bad behavior, and by the last