Sarah O'Connor

I’m tired

NotSarahConnorWrites

May 25, 2020

I’m having trouble finding my words again, though that’s nothing new. I would do more “What’s Going On?” posts to fill the void like usual, but you already know what’s going on. A whole pile of nothing. The days are largely the same, working from home and staying home. Maybe walking around the block if I can motivate myself to do that, read a bit, sew masks when I can make myself want to do that. I suppose there are some good things; I’m still journaling, trying to write creatively when I can. I recently attended a Writing Workshop online with Mona Awad through GritLit and it definitely motivated me in my writing, but I wonder how long that will last.

I know this all sounds very emo and depressing, but with the nice weather and little change besides that it’s hard to be optimistic. Continue reading

Book Review: The Birth Yard by Mallory Tater

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May 22, 2020

“I can feel hysteria in my fingertips when the room is quiet. It’s like a dark power I have where we women can unleash disorder and harm,” (Tater 13).

Mallory Tater’s debut novel The Birth Yard is a dark look at patriarchal control and rebellion and promises to be a must-read for lovers of The Handmaid’s Tale. But Tater’s work doesn’t take place in a dystopian society; instead Tater’s story takes place in a Canadian commune cut off from the ordinary world. Continue reading

Book Review: Please See Us by Caitlin Mullen

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May 15, 2020

“The world was always conspiring to make young women vulnerable while labeling it as ‘fun.’ Made it seem like we were in control, like we were making all the choices, and then it was our fault when things went wrong. Us and our short skirts, our makeup, our taste for rum, for liking the things we were told to like, wanting what we were taught to want,” (Mullen 43).

Please See Us begins with two Jane Does lying dead in a marsh behind the Sunset Motel, their killer the only person who knows they’re there. Meanwhile sixteen-year-old Clara, a psychic, has trouble keeping rent with few clients coming to Atlantic City and has to think of new and dangerous ways to keep from being homeless. But one day she gets a client for a girl missing in Atlantic City, and Clara gets vision saying that the missing girl and others are at risk. But Clara’s gift isn’t as clear as she’d like it to be and when she meets Lily, a former New York gallery-girl, Clara thinks she may have found the one person who can help her solve the case of the missing girls. But Clara and Lily find themselves falling into similar patterns as the other missing girls; will they avoid the same fate? Continue reading

Book Review: An Unauthorized Fan Treatise by Lauren James

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May 13, 2020

“I am utterly convinced of the truth of my argument, beyond a shadow of a doubt. But I’m not trying to persuade you. I have no vested interest in influencing your opinion either way. Only you can decide, based on the evidence I’m presenting, what you believe in your heart to be true,” (James, Chapter One).

What a journey this story was! I’ve been following this serialized novel since January so I came a little late to the game, but it hasn’t stopped me from eagerly awaiting for Monday to come (even more so during the pandemic) so that I could read more of Gottie’s theories as she dug deeper into her fandom rabbit hole and took all her readers with her. Continue reading

Book Review: Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice

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May 8, 2020

“The world isn’t ending…It already ended. It ended when the Zhaagnaash came into our original home down south on that bay and took it from us. That was out world…Yes, apocalypse. We’ve had that over and over. But we always survived. We’re still here. And we’ll still be here, even if the power and the radios don’t come back on and we never see any white people ever again,” (Rice).

This year’s Hamilton Reads title is a timely one and another to add to my quarantine reads.

When the power goes out in a small Anishnabee community the people aren’t too worried at first, power outages are fairly common anyways. But when the power fails to return and news that similar things are happening down South, panic starts to set in. As the band council worries about food supplies and a strong and terrible winter blows in, a mysterious stranger comes to the community saying he can help and promising food when the supplies run low. As the death toll grows high and tension raises, Evan Whitesky finds a way to restore order to the community. Continue reading

Book Review: Severance by Ling Ma

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May 6, 2020

“A day off meant we could do things we’d always meant to do. Like go to the Botanical Garden, the Frick Collection, or something. Read some fiction. Leisure, the problem with the modern condition was the dearth of leisure. And finally, it took a force of nature to interrupt our routines. We just wanted to hit the reset button. We just wanted to feel flush with time to do things of no quantifiable value, our hopeful side pursuits like writing or drawing or something, something other than what we did for money. Like learn to be a better photographer. And even if we didn’t get around to it on that day, our free day, maybe it was enough just to feel the possibility that we could if we wanted to, which is another way of saying that we wanted to feel young, though many of us were that if nothing else,” (Ma 175). Continue reading

Sunburn

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May 4, 2020

Sunday was a sun day, the warmest we’ve had in a while. After buying cat litter in the morning and enjoying the taste of the warmth in my too heavy coat, my face getting even hotter with the cotton mask I had made for myself.

Once I got home I walked around my block, which only takes fifteen minutes. I changed into a lighter jacket, my Ravenclaw one from the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, put on my mask and walked. I had to cross the street a few times, back and forth to maintain six-feet apart, the new normal when walking. One couple apologized to me after they saw me move only to move to the side I had moved on. It wasn’t a big deal; it’s hard to predict walking patterns now. Continue reading

Book Review: Things in Jars by Jess Kidd

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April 29, 2020

I’d heard a lot of good things about Jess Kidd’s Things in Jars on Goodreads despite not hearing much outside of it. And I don’t know why I haven’t, the book is absolutely amazing and a must-read for fans of mystery with a dash of supernatural. Continue reading

Happier Times

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April 27, 2020

I still have my New Year’s jar from 2019 filled and unopened on the shelf by my bed. I was too lazy to open it on New Year’s Eve, I wasn’t nostalgic enough to want to look back at the past year. But quarantine has made me nostalgic for the stupidest things: for grocery shopping without arrows telling me which aisles to go down and full shelves in every aisle, for making lame small talk with my customers and inside jokes with my co-workers, to seeing and laughing with my friends and doing nothing but watching a move in a full theatre, to a time when I could walk by a stranger without either of us shrinking away in fear. Continue reading

Profit on Panic

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April 20, 2020

“Are you making the same thing I am?” the woman asked me at Fabricland six-feet away. I was still getting used to the distance, to projecting; to reminding myself that I wasn’t being rude talking to someone from a distance.

“No, I want to make some scrunchies.” I told the woman while holding two packs of elastics. I was also buying some items for my t-shirt quilt, my big sewing project for 2020. The closing of non-essential businesses had just started and I had luckily gotten to Fabricland the day before they closed. Continue reading