GIRL IN PIECES (Slightly Spoiler-y) Review

Author: Kathleen Glasgow

Rating: 5*

Goodreads Link

CW/TW: self-harm, drug abuse, alcoholism


First off, this book was hard to read. This book was raw; it was real. It was the unflinching truth about self-destruction, self-harm, and the darkest, ugliest sides of ourselves when we face it. However, it wasn't all dark. GIRL IN PIECES celebrates your thing. That bubbling passion in someone struggling, that very thing that anchors them in the dark, how everything comes out. If you can't talk, you do that.

After Charlie becomes homeless, attacked, and loses her best friend, she tries to kill herself by going just that little bit deeper. She fails and her friends from the street drop her off at a hospital to be cared for. In a psychiatric hospital, Charlie finds her people: the cutters, the burners, the pinners. Everyone with skin likes hers, she finds them. She finds solace in them. She finds hope and recovery and a voice with them. Once discharged after several weeks, she moves to another part of the country with the help of her friend, Mikey. There, she starts finding a new life, a better way of living, coping, and looking after herself. Yet starting a new job brings a different start to Charlie: a start that she's well-acquainted with. Meeting Riley sends Charlie into another dark spiral. Together, they navigate bad coping mechanisms, drugs, alcohol, and when Charlie starts to fall in love with him--and, I believe, Riley loved her as well, in some way he was capable--disaster starts. He gets her to do drug runs, she lets him get away with being constantly high or drunk, to a destructive point. Reading about their relationship had my chest tight and tears streaming. I hurt for Charlie, I felt for Riley, I was angry at and addicted to the whole dynamic. When that blows up in Charlie's face and she attempts suicide again, she's saved by people she never thought were looking out for her.

Reading this book made me feel seen. GIRL IN PIECES took my hand, saw the deepest, ugliest parts of myself that made me feel ashamed to confess and said, "It's okay. I see you, I see your hurt, your ways. Be you. Find who you are." In the story, Charlie falls into art. She vents through art, lets out every bad thought, feeling, urge. The author encourages the reader to find their thing. Their passion, their vent. The way I see it is like this: you're standing at a crossroads, at the edge of another urge/breakdown/episode, and you see two signs; one directs to self-harm, the other directs to your passion. The self-harm way might make you feel better but it's destructive, temporary. Now, the passion one is honest, emotional, and is what might drain that bad feeling bit by bit. Kathleen Glasgow has given me a particular gift with this book: as a writer, I don't want to be afraid to write the hard things anymore. I've started writing a new manuscript based off so many feelings I've never felt able to get out. GIRL IN PIECES has given me the gift of acceptance: not everything is rosy and shiny and so why should my passion be? Sometimes YA has a way of romanticising mental health to make a story out of it; this isn't the case with this story. It shows the ugly side most authors can't write about. As someone who has gone through self-harm over and over, got addicted to it, to a point where just going half an hour without hurting myself was an achievement, I needed this story. I needed to know there were others like there who hurt like me and who didn't try to make it into a fancy Tumblr post. At the end of the book, the author leaves a note with self-harm statistics and it made me feel a little less alone, even though I've never had the opportunity to fully talk to others in length about this.

So thank you, Kathleen Glasgow, for writing this book. Thank you for introducing Charlie to the world so I can read her story and know that there is always hope, even when you can't find it right in front of you.

Book of the Month - January

Title: One Of Us is Lying

Author: Karen M. McManus

Rating: 5*

Goodreads Link!

Firstly, January was a great month for reading! I read four books and have already uploaded blog posts for two of them. My January book is ONE OF US IS LYING, a Breakfast Club inspired novel where four students are thrown into the whirlwind mystery of a boy's death.

When Addie, Nate, Cooper, and Bronwyn are the last to see classmate Simon alive in detention, they all become murder suspects. Each with secrets of their own that Simon planned on revealing, they all have contemplative motives. Under questioning by police whilst dealing with their own ruining lives, the four find their lives irreversibly changed by one boy on the biggest revenge trip of high school stories. The murder investigation shakes each of their worlds, pulling them apart, only to knit them back together again with new lives and ambitions.

With each page, this book has you guessing a new suspect. Weaving attraction, secrets, betrayal and social hierarchy into one intricately thought out story, McManus' book has people guessing the suspect before they're revealed, before changing their minds. This book turned me into some sort of distant Sherlock, texting out detailed theories for each new person it could have been to my friend, who'd previously read this book. I'm sure she watched with amused content as I scrambled for the answer and the how.

This book was an entirely new kind of read for me. Usually I can't take to mystery. I can be an impatient reader so to have something lengthy and guessing for that entire time sounded sure to irritate me. What I found was myself being pleasantly surprised. ONE OF US IS LYING has so many plot twists--and what you find out in the end is that, really, they're all lying. To each other, to themselves, to their parents, and not everything is about Simon.

Given from each students' POV, this book offers all sides of the investigation--and the devastation that follows when wrongly questioned for a crime and having every secret held closely unravelled so calculatingly. This book is quite possibly for fans of GOODBYE PERFECT, (in terms of thinking you know people well but you actually don't and police playing a massive part in the puzzle) and, well, those who liked the dynamic of THE BREAKFAST CLUB in terms of character profiles.

ALL THE CROOKED SAINTS (Non-Spoiler Review)

Title: All the Crooked Saints

Author: Maggie Stiefvater

Star Rating: 3* out of 5* (but bear with me; it's not a BAD story)

Would I recommend it?: Hesitantly.

Although this is a review that praises this story as well as points out it's strangeness, I can only give this book three stars purely because it had quite a slow start but this book was, by all means, not a bad book at all. It's the 12th Maggie Stiefvater book I've read, after loving all of her previous books.

All the Crooked Saints is The Most bizarre book I've ever read, with the most bizarre backstories and the most bizarre character interests, but with a very real and honest point to each story told. So entirely different from any of book she's written, Maggie Stiefvater seems to have taken a risk by writing this because it's so distanced from her usual stories (which is a good thing; I don't know why I say it like it isn't). Yes, it has hints of magic and the unusual; yes it has her love stories written like not love stories but love stories all the same; yes it has her cool way of describing family dynamics, but it was so utterly chaotic and somewhat lovable for it's bizarreness that I'm still unsure of my true feelings for it.

From the start to the first 100 pages, I struggled to read more than ten pages a day, wondering if I could actually finish this weird book. It didn't seem to promise much at the beginning, except a large cast of characters, that, at the time, seemed too much; I felt lost in the meaning. But then past page 100, the book suddenly gripped me (think Take on Me by A-Ha sort of gripping, with the hand through the page) and I couldn't put it down for another 150 pages, thus making me suffer with a crick in my shoulder that I'm complaining over now. Things got interesting. Whilst I still read 50% of the book thinking "what the hell?" and frowning, I became interested. That cast that seemed too full at the beginning became necessary and important. All those backstories? They actually have amazing meanings to them. And the base of the story, at it's core? Incredibly thought out. It was like finding gold buried beneath layers of sand, if only you dig long and hard enough. I felt like reading this book was a test: get through the weirdness to find what everything actually means. All the Crooked Saints is about learning lessons, about learning who you are, and I felt like it taught me a lesson.

Very clearly in the story there are two halves: there are the Saints, and there are the pilgrims. Whilst at first things seemed dull, the division became something intriguing. Despite living on the same ranch the two halves never spoke. Until they did. And danger brewed. For a Soria (the family in the book, very wonderfully reminiscent of the dynamic with the Sargents in TRC), to speak to a pilgrim means facing their own (even more terrible than ordinary) darkness, because that's what the pilgrims are trying to work through. Whatever they become after seeking a miracle, it seems to be what they fear. And what they fear is the thing they need to overcome to move on with their life; otherwise they're trapped, unmoving, not knowing where to go. That was a Big Deal to read--so very true, wrapped in the strange, surrounding context of the story. You have to face your fear so you can begin to live properly again.

Maggie Stiefvater has a way of making a smaller setting seem much grander, much more vast, and Bicho Raro, the place where the Soria's live, is no exception. It has all the vastness and endless possibilities found in Fox Way, in Monmouth, and so, in a distant way, All the Crooked Saints is like a unique mirror of TRC - with more characters, a thinner plot and book, but just as much otherworldliness and intrigue.

All the Crooked Saints was hard to get into, but once I did get into it, it was endless, infinite, beautiful, imaginative and asked me to read in between the lines--which I kind of feel like I have done. Then there are the three main Soria counsins of the "current generation" as such: Beatriz was interesting and lovable; Daniel was flawed and thoughtful, and Joaquin was just downright a classic Stiefvater creation. Each name and backstory and fleshed-out character had that special, unique Stiefvater brand, which was what won me over eventually. Consisting of many owls, miracles, trading darkness for light, butterfly dresses and a girl who can't stop crying and is constantly rained on, this book is one I'd hesitantly recommend.

If you want a book to challenge your focus and understanding as a reader, go ahead! Although some of the writing felt simple yet quirky, it was not a simple storyline, but one that asked to be looked into further beyond what was written. It's weirdness is what will make me remember this book in a good way; it's what will make this book stand out.

EVERYTHING AROUND US - In Progress.

“Is it not just nice to imagine? To collect thoughts and versions of what the world could be like and use that as fuel to create?”

            “Create what?” I asked, my voice rising harshly. “Unhappiness because those ideals will never happen?”

***

Contrary to the snippet above from my current WIP, I'm a massive believer in imagining other versions of myself. Is it weird to be able to pin-point the exact moment your life kind of went downhill? I can, and it was weird. It was something I couldn't adjust to and have fallen prey to. So I planned to write a book, out of my comfort zone, to deal with it. I knew I wanted it to have truthful situations I knew I'd be able to realistically write about. But it was going to be another version of me. I wanted to write a boy suffering with anxiety and relying on something creative. I wanted to use my knowledge of film-making which has just been tumbling round in my head since I left college last year.

I left it as a really weak idea for months before I even named my male protagonist. But in December, I watched an episode of The Vampire Diaries and listened to Concrete Angel and suddenly, I saw this boy in my head, and the song became something to me. The lyrics turned into thoughts and I  viewed how he saw a girl that he wanted to befriend. He wanted to reach her but they both had their own boundaries, and the girl had a good reason to put up her walls.

Hazel came to me in tiny bits. Her trademark ballcap fashion came first, slightly inspired from a friend I used to have. Her attitude came from another song (Cider by Yezi), and I went from there to build an image of the girl who'd oppose Nicholas and tell her own story.

EVERYTHING AROUND US follows both their POVs, to see their struggles and the different people they find in a small film club. In total, there are only five people (including them), largely underestimated by the leader of the group who missed his shot at being on a lighting team in Hollywood. So they only end up making one short film. This story is about inspiring each of the five to look beyond the ugliness they see in their worlds and find beauty, and to capture it.

Hazel finds it hardest to adjust. Taken from another friend, I made her restless. I made her a free spirit who found it hard to sit still or stay in one place, to go where her feet took her when she wanted. But she finds her place there eventually, as each of the others do. They find that they have a place, that they're needed to make something bigger, which is what they've always missed.

The club coaxes Nicholas to deal with his anxiety rather than just sit and waste away in his room, pondering over a fulfilled past. Anxiety is something I've not dealt well this past year and I've used that in Nicholas to see how he handles it, to see the support he gets and what he does from that. Hazel comes from a family that has slowly broken down because of something she did three years prior to the start of the story, and her side is fun and free to explore. The other three all add so much life and exploration to the story: Stuart, who can't decide on how he wants to look and relies on the opinions of others to guide him because of his own past; Hank who hates his name and switches from being called Dean or Alex depending on his days, who has a lot of parental pressure to be academically clever when he just wants to explore; Ailee, a girl who wants to fly and make art but got rejected from her dream school and finds the club as another creative avenue.

This story is in the drafting process and incredibly close to me. I'm taking situations I know or have seen and making them into something I can work through and find answers to. Through it, I'm finding old passions again and showing that I'm a lot more than just a person who sits at their desk and writes and that's all. I've lived and explored and whilst that may not be the case so much now, I will again because if I can write it, I'll believe it and become inspired by it.

The Sun is Also a Star (Review)

Title: The Sun is Also a Star

Author: Nicola Yoon

Genre: Young Adult

Rating: 5* !!!

“… Meant to be doesn’t have to mean forever…”

As a reader, I’ve learnt this:

There are some books you read that are good, incredible, even. There are other books that coax your entire being into it and take you to a different place completely. But then there are books that are important. The Sun is Also a Star was important to me—and it should be to the world, not just of readers.

Set in New York, Nicola Yoon (after a delightfully deep and emotional debut of Everything, Everything), manages to address every concept of life within a 344-page novel, and all taking place on the same day. Not only to write about so many realistic concepts, but to set it as she did… that had to be hard. But Nicola Yoon pulled it off in a way that surrounded me entirely, starting from the how-to-make-an-apple-pie philosophy beginning, to the tearful ending.

Backtrack to December, 2016. I asked for this book as a Christmas present. I knew I wouldn’t read it straight away, no matter how excited I was for the author’s next book after completely adoring Everything, Everything. For some reason, this book sat on my shelf and I wouldn’t pick it up—something told me to wait, that there was something about this book that required special timing. So I waited. Fast-forward a few months, to a couple days ago. I was holiday-ing in Corfu, a place I’d never been before, on a relaxation break. I packed The Sun is Also a Star—finally, it felt right to read it. I’m glad that I followed that weird feeling to wait because I got to read a thoughtful and beautiful book in a beautiful setting.

Immediately after closing the book, I said to my mum, “I need to write about this book. I can’t just leave it at that. This book needs to be spread so much further and I want to contribute to that.” After spending two days falling in love with the characters, the realism of the novel, I still couldn’t shake off this story.

Daniel Jae Ho Bae is a dreamer. Natasha Kingsley is a realistic cynic. Both are immigrants; one illegal, one legal. Daniel was born in America, but his parents originated from South Korea, and moved to America for better prospects, and their knowledge and experience of being poor weighs heavily on their two sons. Because of their past, they heap pressure on Daniel and Charles (aka, Asshole) to get themselves better futures. Doctors, is what they want their sons to be. And they push.

After being a Harvard drop-out, Charles becomes the sort-of frowned-upon son, when he’s always been the one Daniel is being told to be more like. Finally, one day, Daniel’s mum says that she doesn’t want him to end up like his older brother. Despite being born in America, Daniel is very Korean, completely opposite from his brother, who tries his best to be everything American. All these aspects are very important to the plot and Daniel’s character and life. On the day it is set, Daniel has an interview to begin his journey to the Second-Best university and then become a doctor eventually. He’s dressed up smartly and promises his mum that he’ll cut his hair.

Spoiler: he doesn’t.

It becomes quickly apparent through a train (literally) of awry things happening on his journey that Daniel does not want to be a doctor and he cares very little for the interview, clearly only going to make his parents happy because he knows how strongly they feel about not being poor, wanting their children to have a better life. What Daniel—sweet, innocent (again, not quite in thought as the story progresses), dreaming Daniel—wants is to be a poet. And he’s so immersed in his poetic world that it utterly collides (both well and terribly) with Natasha’s scientific, factual one.

Natasha Kingsley is also a main character with a sibling. This time younger. Peter is the brother that she has to share a living-room-turned-split-bedroom with. A curtain partitions their two rooms, barely. Living in a poor neighbourhood, Natasha’s family are immediately revealed that the day of the story is the day they’ll be deported. But instantly, Natasha is the only one not accepting that and acts to save her family.

Progressing into the novel, it becomes clear the resentment Natasha harbours for her father and their life and the unfairness of the situation. She remembers very little of the country she has come from-- Jamaica. What she does remember though is America being her home and now she’s being told that she has to leave that home, through no fault of her own. She’s paying for the mistake her father made. Obsessed with the facts and workings of the world, Natasha has no true passion.  It’s clear that she loves science and the world she surrounds herself with; she’s full of all this clever knowledge of the world and the reasons. But that’s just it for her: everything has to have a reason and evidence behind it. Nothing can never just be.

Then she meets Daniel. Daniel, who is beautiful to her and tempting and a dreamer. And he takes her to a Korean restaurant and to a Korean karaoke room and she offers to take him to her favourite museum, and he does his best to link love to scientific experimentation, and alters her way of thinking; she allows more thought to the way he sees things. In turn, she alters his.

This story is about the impossibility of falling in love as quickly as they do—that its fate, Daniel argues. But Natasha pushes and refuses that—she’s being deported, of course she doesn’t believe that it is fate. Why would she happen to meet him, fall in love with him, all on the day that she’d never see him again after? All throughout their day together, she can physically see Daniel’s brain wandering into a deeper love for her as she talks to him about her facts and world. And bit by bit, her resistance seems to fade, as such. She realises that she does feel for him. All these realisations come to her so strongly that it’s almost overwhelming.

A very important aspect of the book is that each background character mentioned meet get their own chapter (or two) of their backstory, to explain why and how they got to be a part of the story at the time they were. A security guard assesses Natasha’s phone at the office she has an appointment for about her deportation, and Nirvana’s album cover is her phone case. The security guard takes note of it, and she listens to the album on her break. This leads to her solidifying the fact that she wants to take her own life. But then the security guard gets another chapter—and her life is changed (very importantly so, for the ending that is sure to bring tears to eyes), thanks to Natasha.

In one part, a man nearly runs Natasha over in his car. His story is explained—and then it evolves to involve another man, who turns out to be the lawyer who is handling Natasha’s case—and happens to be Daniel’s interviewer. Each part of this story is intricately and well-thought out to weave together in a perfect and plot-twisting way to tell a story that expands so much more from the streets of New York. Each character is intertwined and tells a story that shows just how much one small move from one small person can affect another. A half-thought “thank you” can inspire a woman to move past the darkness, get help. A flight time falls perfectly to get two torn-apart people on the plane, plus an air attendant who remembers goodness. A man who recklessly drove can affect the mental outlook of another man, who realises that he needs to alter his married life and finally tell the woman he truly loves that he wants only her. A boy who’s on the verge of losing the best thing in his life can give altering perspective to a man who has so many more years on him.

And a poet can change the life of a factual, aspiring scientist who is facing the worst thing in her life.

So many aspects make up this book: family, friends, love, past, futures, legal matters, aspirations, passion, culture. With the two protagonists being so diverse, culture takes a massive front seat in The Sun is Also a Star and there are so many informative explanations and history in selected chapters. Despite coming from a South Korean background, Daniel’s father owns a black hair product store. Which, evidently, links into Natasha’s and her mother’s different hair styles. Through this, Nicola Yoon gives facts on the background of how the popularity of Koreans in America came to open up these kinds of stores which thrived. Following that, there is history on black women’s hair and styles and how they changed, what was fashionable, and how Natasha’s mother disapproves of her Afro, when she herself chemically straightens her hair. Natasha expresses her interest in changing up her hair styles, despite the popular “look”.

I’m not American, I’m not very well versed on American culture. So through this book, I learnt things about Korean culture as well as American and Jamaican. I wasn’t just reading a story, I was reading history and facts and things that made me wonder and think and consider. There’s a part in the book where Daniel and Natasha go to the Korean restaurant, and she asks the waitress for a fork as she doesn’t know how to use chopsticks. The Korean waitress responds with, “Teach girlfriend how to use chopsticks,” to Daniel. She then gets her own chapter of how she’s had her family divided by culture and American-Korean disagreements within the family. Her son married a white woman, moved away from his family’s disapproval, and how she only gets to see her grandchildren on pictures through social media. All this comes back to her through an American customer not being willing to learn how to use chopsticks in her restaurant. Her chapter mentions how America wants everyone to know their ways but isn’t willing to accept a small piece of other people’s culture within the country. I had a similar experience in a Korean restaurant—I asked for a fork because I didn’t know how to use chopsticks to eat my meal. I had no clue how to eat Korean food—I didn’t know there was a way. I didn’t have a Daniel Bae to instruct me. On top of the fork thing, I mixed my rice with my main meal. Again, wrong. I was taught that rice is eaten separately, and with a spoon. I did three things wrong in that restaurant, so reading about Natasha getting it wrong too made me feel relatable. I sat wondering if I’d offended the waitress who saw me, as the waitress took offence at Natasha’s asking for a fork.

There are two opposites in this story: there are people who embrace their origins and where they’ve come from, and then there are those who try to escape it and forcefully immerse themselves in the new culture they live in. The latter includes Daniel’s brother, who gets embarrassed at Daniel calling him a respectful hyung, the title for younger brothers to address their elder brother. As well as Charles, there is Natasha’s father. He’s the one who moved them to America, to follow his dreams of becoming an actor—evidently he’s also the one who ends them up being deported back to where he wanted to escape. Yet, he just accepts it where Natasha fights for her family’s rights.

With so much disagreement and awful actions over diversity and minorities going on in the world, The Sun is Also a Star puts incredible perspective on that through love and family relations in a story way, but also so it’s clear that this is a very real book.

My Second Novel and I'm Pretty Proud

Okay, so it's only a first draft completed. But as someone who usually struggles with just those, I'm pretty happy. I started drafting this in October/November, sitting next to my sister. She was playing the Les Miserables soundtrack and I'm pretty sure we were both supposed to be job-hunting. I played around with the opening sentence; I knew I wanted it to open with my younger sister character, Aritha. She was the part of the story that was the servant to the Empire so I wanted her to be central, already in the palace, to kick off the story. Immediately, I wanted to draw attention to the tattoo on her wrist and start of saying, "Hey, yeah, so this is an important thing she has." So, beside my sister, I wrote two lines of something about the steam of the pot making her face itch because she had to stir some sort of soup for the palace dinner that night. That turned out to be altered from hot to the feel of the cold of the stone floors making her flinch. Sensory, you see? I'm doing something right.


I called this story Imperial Infiltration. In the back of a taxi in Spain, driving back to the airport to come home, in mid-September last year, I began to have the tendrils of an idea about two sisters; one would be inside the palace and the other would pose as some princess or nobility figure for some reason. I didn't know what it was but I jotted it down on my phone and my mum asked what I was doing, and I just shrugged and said, "Another idea I probably won't use." Yet here I am this morning, writing about it and typing THE END to it. This all sounds very self-important for somebody who hasn't even got an agent or started editing this but I want to get my writing out there. I'd love for people to read this and gain interest, follow my news and updates. I don't know, but here's to trying! And here's to my sister for telling me to post and blog about my writing again properly to get it circulating, thank you! If anyone remembers, my earlier blog posts used to actually be about the last book I wrote so I may start that up again depending on how this one goes.

So Imperial Infiltration tortured my mind for a while. At the time, I was writing a story about two best friends in a gang of thieves, working for a man called Red. That story sucked quite spectacularly. It was fueled by pure anger and grudges and sadness and I'd never tried writing about thefts before but I persevered. But then I really, really couldn't help thinking that this new idea would be better; it would be the thing to break the spotting of creativity and I'd actually make good progress with it. So I began to write properly--each day, starting officially on this rule in January. And it's massively paid off for me. I've gotten a first draft completed in five months where my last full book took me a year and a bit. Yes, editing is to come next and I have my notes and my plans and the positivity still there in a waves, and this will be a lengthy process but I'm just enjoying my success here. My last post was dismal, angry, and I wanted a different tone.

This is the story of two sisters, only two years apart. When they lose both their parents, they're forced to duel out ownership of their house as they want to go their separate ways. Here, it doesn't matter who was born first; it just matters who wins. The eldest, Reya, wants to travel, train herself to become more like her father who served as the Emperor's general (this story is set in a big Empire called Zaari) and use the house as a constant base for when she returns. Aritha is the youngest and more logical. She just wants to live in the house, sell different furniture to buy her own things. But at the same time, she wants out completely. But their duel goes a little haywire and Reya gets injured, making her do that last step towards leaving. She travels to a place outside of the Empire called the Stones, a transformed battle safehouse, where she then trains with a different army general. Alone and surrounded by the house she originally wanted, Aritha can't bear the loneliness and memories so she leaves. But she leaves to go to the imperial palace. Her theory is that there, she'll have work without worrying that she'll have to return to an empty home, she'll be surrounded by people and she'll have a constant in her life again. So she becomes a servant. After a few choice events, Reya also makes her appearance in the palace, but posing as someone called Lady Revina and she's been sent there for some ulterior motive that even she didn't know.


Romance doesn't really take a high seat in this story. There is very much elements of it. For example, Aritha finds herself feeling for a lord's son within the palace and their journey assists in her own in her confidence. She's out of practice with feeling loved and second-guesses the reciprocated feelings quite a bit but she comes to realise Jackson, the son, does care about her. In the Stones, Reya and Eli, the general's nephew, come to have a certain arrangement of "hey, I'll kiss you and try to acknowledge that I like you but in reality and more sober, I'm too scared to admit it." But there's only make-believe feelings there. None of them really pursue it but they argue about it enough. It's more focused on the depth of the siblingship and the break in the past and how each of them deal with the loss of their parents and each other and what the memories and unfinished business does to them. Reya is a character who can get stroppy quite easily, someone easily scared. Aritha suffers from panic attacks and is timid, afraid in her own way, and is picked on within the palace. But she builds herself up each time because she only has herself. She falls the hardest out of everyone in the kitchen where she works but she's the first to get herself back up.


So this was originally planned to be a 420-page standalone. That was my goal when the idea began to take shape in my head. With each month, I counted up my daily wordcount and my monthly one and got better and better. Two days ago, I wrote a chapter ending and realised: oh, this is actually a pretty good, concluded ending. Followed by, wait! you have so much more to write. And I literally had an internal monologue/argument with myself over if I should leave it there and write a second book to couple with it because of how much further I wanted to go with this story, or if I should carry on writing, shorten my ideas and make it the standalone originally planned. So I took out my phone and talked and explained to my friend; she agreed that good fantasy usually comes as more than one book and it should be a duology. I asked others and they also agreed. So, after much deliberation, I'm now closing THE END on the first book standing at 340 pages (pre-edit) and beginning the editing process whilst planning out brief notes for the continuation. Me being me, I scrambled at the books on my shelves, somewhat disappointed as I don't feel like this is long enough but I've said all I want to in a now first book and tried to find others that had a 300-400 page count. And I did so I'm somewhat reassured this may be okay.


I have no idea what either one will be called now so I'll also be thinking up ideas for that and perhaps looking for critique partners again which never work out but heyho, timing is awful. In the second book, I plan for most things to come to light. The reason why Reya was sent to the palace, what the infiltration means, introducing characters into the off-limits part of the Empire called the Barian Desert rather than just have past legends being told. A lot more can go on with this story, especially given where I've ended it. I never thought I'd end a story with a kiss but that seemed right and nice for one of the character's partial conclusion.


I usually post updates on my personal Instagram account: reidandwriting, or I have a Twitter account @ShaneDReid where I post about my writing, if anyone's interested! Follow me or come chat to meeeee :D