strange and random happenstance

The Burial Witch by Cari Thomas
Published by: HarperCollins Publishers
Publication Date: June 5th, 2025
Format: Hardcover, 150 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

It's summer and Miranda Richardson has every second of her time accounted for. She has spent her life trying to live up to the expectations of her parents who already have two perfect children. But she never thinks she's good enough. If she can't even smile right for the family photo how is she going to achieve all her goals? They're laminated and on her wall; GOALS BEFORE THIRTY. Which is why instead of going to the park with her brother she is digging through boxes in the attic for a school project on the Richardson Family Tree. She's learning all about the Smiths and Evans from Shropshire and the local steel industry. Despite her father's enthusiasm she doesn't think she could be more bored if she tried. Yet she chose to look into her father's family and not her mother's. As she shifts the boxes of the past in the attic she finds a suitcase. It obviously belonged to her maternal grandparents. They emigrated from Nigeria to Peckham. Since their deaths her mother never talks about them. They are Richardsons, they can achieve anything they set their minds to. They don't dig into their past, they are a future-facing family. Which would be why Miranda is learning about Shropshire's steel industry. Her mother has made it clear that that part of their lives, her life, is over. The past is the past. But it's about to affect Miranda's present. In the suitcase she finds a box. There is something inside the box. When she moves it there is a clunking sound. Getting it open becomes her obsession. It's like a fairy tale come to life, this is her test. And she's failing because fairy tales don't come with instructions. She starts to slip in her work and she's distracted at church and lashing out. This little coffin shaped box leads her to do the unheard of. She has never disobeyed her parents, she wants to be like her mother when she grows up, and yet she goes to a shop that is off-limits. When A Sense of Craft opened in Richmond Miranda's mother tired to have it shut down. But this store and it's owner, Maya, might be Miranda's only hope. Though Miranda can't help but feel that Maya is a threat. That she's somehow involved in what's happening. Especially when Maya's advice opens the box to reveal a wooden doll. What could this mean? Miranda has to get to the bottom of this. Her summer was written and now she's dealing with magical forces, first loves, demonic dreams. If she wasn't highly strung before the events of the last few weeks she is now. The question is, will she embrace what's to come or bury it in a shallow grave?

Since I finished Shadowstitch I have been desperately craving anything new in Cari Thomas's The Language of Magic series. So when The Burial Witch novella was announced I was overjoyed. Preordered it from England to get it two months early overjoyed. And then I learned it was about Miranda. And my joy was somewhat tempered. It's not that I dislike Miranda, she's just the least interesting member of this Scooby Gang. Miranda has just been there, doing her thing, being conflicted about her religious beliefs and equally fighting and embracing this new aspect to herself, this magical aspect. She just is. And then The Burial Witch comes out and now I have to reread the whole series because of this new insight I have into her. Her OCD nature, her wanting to please her parents, her fear of the "other," all of this I relate to. Some from when I was her age, some from now. It's like she represents the different stages of my life and she's had to have all these changes thrust on her over one short summer. But what really struck me about her book, this book, is that you have to have no foreknowledge of anything else in this series for this book to work. It is a self-contained little masterpiece of a novella. Really, think British Stephen King at the top of his game and that's The Burial Witch. This is a perfect standalone horror novella in the tradition of Carrie. A religious girl is confronted by the unknown, there's temptation in this new knowledge, then, being who she is, she must find out more and goes to a forbidden shop where it's revealed that magic is real. And that dichotomy, that struggle in Miranda that Maya tries to help her with is to show her that not all religion is Christian and not all magic is bad. Which brings in the Vodun religion. Most people just think of rather racist and stereotypical Voodoo tropes. Whereas real Vodun is nothing like the movies would have you think. Yes, it's far away from anything Miranda might have experienced, and let us not forget she's lived a very sheltered life, but it's still holy. It's still divine. And so many books only use Vodun for the tropes, here it's handled thoughtfully. And what I really appreciate is that seeing as this series is set in England there's a certain kind of view of British magic. It's very Anglocentric. Yet England, like the rest of the world, is a melting pot. Therefore it makes sense that there are different kinds of magic. And having Vodun from Nigeria just works. There's a balance here that makes it both terrifying and respectful. Because it's how Miranda handles the changes where all the fear arises. The villain isn't magic, the villain is change. The villain is a future that wasn't planned out and laminated. That's a horror we can all relate to.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Anglocentric, Cari Thomas, Carrie, Horror, Miranda Richardson, Nigeria, Novella, OCD, Religion, Scooby Gang, Shadowstitch, Stephen King, Summer School, The Burial Witch, The Language of Magic, Threadneedle, Top Ten, Vodun, West Africa

The Burial Witch by Cari Thomas
Published by: HarperCollins Publishers
Publication Date: June 5th, 2025
Format: Hardcover, 150 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

It's summer and Miranda Richardson has every second of her time accounted for. She has spent her life trying to live up to the expectations of her parents who already have two perfect children. But she never thinks she's good enough. If she can't even smile right for the family photo how is she going to achieve all her goals? They're laminated and on her wall; GOALS BEFORE THIRTY. Which is why instead of going to the park with her brother she is digging through boxes in the attic for a school project on the Richardson Family Tree. She's learning all about the Smiths and Evans from Shropshire and the local steel industry. Despite her father's enthusiasm she doesn't think she could be more bored if she tried. Yet she chose to look into her father's family and not her mother's. As she shifts the boxes of the past in the attic she finds a suitcase. It obviously belonged to her maternal grandparents. They emigrated from Nigeria to Peckham. Since their deaths her mother never talks about them. They are Richardsons, they can achieve anything they set their minds to. They don't dig into their past, they are a future-facing family. Which would be why Miranda is learning about Shropshire's steel industry. Her mother has made it clear that that part of their lives, her life, is over. The past is the past. But it's about to affect Miranda's present. In the suitcase she finds a box. There is something inside the box. When she moves it there is a clunking sound. Getting it open becomes her obsession. It's like a fairy tale come to life, this is her test. And she's failing because fairy tales don't come with instructions. She starts to slip in her work and she's distracted at church and lashing out. This little coffin shaped box leads her to do the unheard of. She has never disobeyed her parents, she wants to be like her mother when she grows up, and yet she goes to a shop that is off-limits. When A Sense of Craft opened in Richmond Miranda's mother tired to have it shut down. But this store and it's owner, Maya, might be Miranda's only hope. Though Miranda can't help but feel that Maya is a threat. That she's somehow involved in what's happening. Especially when Maya's advice opens the box to reveal a wooden doll. What could this mean? Miranda has to get to the bottom of this. Her summer was written and now she's dealing with magical forces, first loves, demonic dreams. If she wasn't highly strung before the events of the last few weeks she is now. The question is, will she embrace what's to come or bury it in a shallow grave?

Since I finished Shadowstitch I have been desperately craving anything new in Cari Thomas's The Language of Magic series. So when The Burial Witch novella was announced I was overjoyed. Preordered it from England to get it two months early overjoyed. And then I learned it was about Miranda. And my joy was somewhat tempered. It's not that I dislike Miranda, she's just the least interesting member of this Scooby Gang. Miranda has just been there, doing her thing, being conflicted about her religious beliefs and equally fighting and embracing this new aspect to herself, this magical aspect. She just is. And then The Burial Witch comes out and now I have to reread the whole series because of this new insight I have into her. Her OCD nature, her wanting to please her parents, her fear of the "other," all of this I relate to. Some from when I was her age some from now. It's like she represents the different stages of my life and she's had to have all these changes thrust on her over one short summer. But what really struck me about her book, this book, is that you have to have no foreknowledge of anything else in this series for this book to work. It is a self-contained little masterpiece of a novella. Really, think British Stephen King at the top of his game and that's The Burial Witch. This is a perfect standalone horror novella in the tradition of Carrie. A religious girl is confronted by the unknown, there's temptation in this new knowledge, then, being who she is, she must find out more and goes to a forbidden shop where it's revealed that magic is real. And that dichotomy, that struggle in Miranda that Maya tries to help her with is to show her that not all religion is Christian and not all magic is bad. Which brings in the Vodun religion. Most people just think of rather racist and stereotypical Voodoo tropes. Whereas real Vodun is nothing like the movies would have you think. Yes, it's far away from anything Miranda might have experienced, and let us not forget she's lived a very sheltered life, but it's still holy. It's still divine. And so many books only use Vodun for the tropes, here it's handled thoughtfully. And what I really appreciate is that seeing as this series is set in England there's a certain kind of view of British magic. It's very Anglocentric. Yet England, like the rest of the world, is a melting pot. Therefore it makes sense that there are different kinds of magic. And having Vodun from Nigeria just works. There's a balance here that makes it both terrifying and respectful. Because it's how Miranda handles the changes where all the fear arises. The villain isn't magic, the villain is change. The villain is a future that wasn't planned out and laminated. That's a horror we can all relate to.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: A Sense of Craft, Anglocentric, Cari Thomas, Carrie, Horror, Miranda Richardson, Nigeria, Novella, OCD, Religion, Shadowstitch, Stephen King, Summer School, The Burial Witch, The Language of Magic, Threadneedle, Vodun, West Africa

The Likeness by Tana French
Published by: Penguin Books
Publication Date: July 17th, 2008
Format: Paperback, 496 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Detective Cassie Maddox has left the Murder squad. It became too fraught and messy. Instead she's simplifying her life, she's dating Sam O’Neill and has transferred to Domestic Violence. Everything is falling into a nice new routine, until her old life comes back to haunt her. Before Murder Cassie was undercover as a University of Dublin student called Lexie Madison. The way that ended is actually how she got her gig in Murder. But Lexie is unexpectedly about to return. Sam has been called to a crime scene and he contacts Cassie freaking out, because despite talking to her on the phone he is convinced he is looking at her dead body. Cassie's doppelganger is found dead outside the town of Glenskehy. What's more, her ID says she's Lexie Madison. This girl, whomever she was, used the fake Lexie identity to slip into a new life at Trinity and was getting a PhD in English ironically writing about women who wrote under other identities. She was living at Whitethorn House in Glenskehy with four of her classmates in some idealized literary commune where they spent their spare time fixing up the house and avoiding the locals. This is an unprecedented opportunity. The police can have "Lexie" make a remarkable recovery and send Cassie into Lexie's life. Her killer is either a local or in the house! Which means there are four prime suspects, Daniel March, inanimate object as narrator in early medieval epic poetry, Justin Mannering, sacred and profane love in Renaissance literature, Rafe Hyland, the malcontent in Jacobean drama, and Abby Stone, the social class in Victorian literature. Cassie just has to be this "new" Lexie, get in and get out. The only problem is, once there, it's so nice leaving her own messy life behind that maybe she'd rather stay with these four people who like to live out of time.

After reading the first Dublin Murder Squad book I wrote off Tana French. There are too many books and authors out there I just had to go with my initial impression. This was what everyone was raving about? I was mystified. This wasn't a clever mystery with an unreliable narrator, it was a straightforward mystery with an asshole narrator. Therefore I dove into the STARZ adaptation thinking perhaps they could improve upon the source material. And during the opening credits is when I learned the show was based on the first two books in the series... and the OCD completest in me made me stop the show and pick up The Likeness. I know what I had said, but the OCD took over. So right here I would like to thank Dublin Murders, that perfectly cast, horrifically adapted, surprisingly not yet cancelled series for making me pick up The Likeness, as perfect a book as In the Woods was imperfect. It's rare for me to say I never want a book to end, but I never wanted this book to end. I wanted to move into the pages, I wanted to become a member of that Whitethorn House literary cabal. I wanted to spend nights with Abby making historically accurate clothes for creepy dolls found in the house. I wanted to be a part of something but apart from reality. I wanted this life Cassie was inhabiting almost more than Cassie herself wanted it. This book was just filled with literary goodness, especially Brideshead Revisited references! Oh how I want to go back, oh how I want to live in this book. It's just gorgeous and Gothic and timeless and timely and perfection.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Brideshead Revisited, Cassie Maddox, Doppelganger, Dublin Murder Squad, Dublin Murders, Going Gothic, In the Woods, Lexie Madison, Manor House, Murder, OCD, Tana French, The Likeness, Victorian, Whitethorn House

As a person with an obsessive disorder once I find a film I love I will just watch it over and over again. This was very bad on VHS tapes when I was young. I would literally wear them out. I even once wore out a DVD set... At the beginning of high school the film being obsessed over was Dead Again. Doomed lovers reincarnated to not only get their happily ever after but to get revenge for their deaths? Oh yes please! What I loved most about it was the fact that Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson weren't just lovers in the film but their love was real! I became a little obsessed with their relationship and would watch anything they were in together, with especial love for Peter's Friends and Much Ado About Nothing. In our house we had a book on the history of Masterpiece Theatre and there was a picture in it from Fortunes of War. Seeing as this was the miniseries they met on and where they fell in love, to me, this was the beginning of their love story and therefore it was very important that I watch it. At the time you couldn't rent the miniseries so I had to content myself with drawing the picture in the book. I remember that I was convinced the only way to get Emma's hat right was with watercolor pencils. Let's just say I'm still not the best with this medium and when I was a teenager I was worse. I kind of ruined the picture and moved on to obsessing over the movie The Tall Guy, Emma Thompson, Jeff Goldblum, pure genius. By the time I finally got to watch Fortunes of War Kenneth and Emma's marriage had imploded, and she had thankfully found love again in the arms of Willougby and as I thought at the time, Kenneth could go fuck himself. In fact I kind of still feel that way but begrudgingly admit he occasionally has talent. So it was bittersweet seeing this miniseries that meant so much to me long before I had seen it. In fact, in my mind, they aren't the stars of this miniseries. Yes, I know, I know, it says they are, but Ronald Pickup as Prince Yakimov stole the show. He had a little bit of an Edward Gorey vibe with his long fur coat, and I just adore him. And when he met his tragic end in Greece, not only did I learn about the atrocities the Nazis perpetrated on the Greek, but I also felt like I had lost a friend. RIP Prince Yakimov. But thankfully Ronald Pickup was still making movies and television shows until his death at the age of 80 this year.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Dead Again, Edward Gorey, Emma Thompson, Fifty Years a Masterpiece, Fortunes of War, Greece, Jeff Goldblum, Kenneth Branagh, Love, OCD, Peter's Friends, Prince Yakimov, Ronald Pickup, The Tall Guy, Willougby

The Likeness by Tana French
Published by: Penguin Books
Publication Date: July 17th, 2008
Format: Paperback, 496 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Detective Cassie Maddox has left the Murder squad. It became too fraught and messy. Instead she's simplifying her life, she's dating Sam O’Neill and has transferred to Domestic Violence. Everything is falling into a nice new routine, until her old life comes back to haunt her. Before Murder Cassie was undercover as a University of Dublin student called Lexie Madison. The way that ended is actually how she got her gig in Murder. But Lexie is unexpectedly about to return. Sam has been called to a crime scene and he contacts Cassie freaking out, because despite talking to her on the phone he is convinced he is looking at her dead body. Cassie's doppelganger is found dead outside the town of Glenskehy. What's more, her ID says she's Lexie Madison. This girl, whomever she was, used the fake Lexie identity to slip into a new life at Trinity and was getting a PhD in English ironically writing about women who wrote under other identities. She was living at Whitethorn House in Glenskehy with four of her classmates in some idealized literary commune where they spent their spare time fixing up the house and avoiding the locals. This is an unprecedented opportunity. The police can have "Lexie" make a remarkable recovery and send Cassie into Lexie's life. Her killer is either a local or in the house! Which means there are four prime suspects, Daniel March, inanimate object as narrator in early medieval epic poetry, Justin Mannering, sacred and profane love in Renaissance literature, Rafe Hyland, the malcontent in Jacobean drama, and Abby Stone, the social class in Victorian literature. Cassie just has to be this "new" Lexie, get in and get out. The only problem is, once there, it's so nice leaving her own messy life behind that maybe she'd rather stay with these four people who like to live out of time.

After reading the first Dublin Murder Squad book I wrote off Tana French. There are too many books and authors out there I just had to go with my initial impression. This was what everyone was raving about? I was mystified. This wasn't a clever mystery with an unreliable narrator, it was a straightforward mystery with an asshole narrator. Therefore I dove into the STARZ adaptation thinking perhaps they could improve upon the source material. And during the opening credits is when I learned the show was based on the first two books in the series... and the OCD completest in me made me stop the show and pick up The Likeness. I know what I had said, but the OCD took over. So right here I would like to thank Dublin Murders, that perfectly cast, horrifically adapted, surprisingly not yet cancelled series for making me pick up The Likeness, as perfect a book as In the Woods was imperfect. It's rare for me to say I never want a book to end, but I never wanted this book to end. I wanted to move into the pages, I wanted to become a member of that Whitethorn House literary cabal. I wanted to spend nights with Abby making historically accurate clothes for creepy dolls found in the house. I wanted to be a part of something but apart from reality. I wanted this life Cassie was inhabiting almost more than Cassie herself wanted it. This book was just filled with literary goodness, especially Brideshead Revisited references! Oh how I want to go back, oh how I want to live in this book. It's just gorgeous and Gothic and timeless and timely and perfection.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Brideshead Revisited, Cassie Maddox, Doppelganger, Dublin Murder Squad, Dublin Murders, Gothic, In the Woods, Lexie Madison, Manor House, Murder, OCD, Tana French, The Likeness, Trinity, Victorian, Whitethorn House

Agatha Christie's Poirot: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Based on the book by Agatha Christie
Starring: David Suchet, Roger Frost, Oliver Ford Davies, Malcolm Terris, Nigel Cooke, Jamie Bamber, Rosalind Bailey, Gregor Truter, Clive Brunt, Selina Cadell, Daisy Beaumont, Flora Montgomery, Vivien Heilbron, and Philip Jackson
Release Date: January 2nd, 2000
Rating: ★★★
To Buy

Poirot arrives at a bank. He carefully removes a waterlogged journal from a safety deposit box. He sits himself down and reviews the journal of a depraved mind. A mind for murder. The events of which happened when Poirot retired to King's Abbot to grow mallows. On the day that Mrs. Ferrars was to kill herself Dr. Sheppard accompanied Roger Ackroyd's butler over to his neighbor Poirot's house. Poirot was attempting to successfully cultivate mallows with the loving care only an obsessive compulsive could lavish on the vegetables and yet he does not succeed. Thankfully Parker has come at the request of his employer to ask if Poirot's tour of the factory could be moved forward an hour, to which Poirot is glad to accede, the mallows will only frustrate him more. Years earlier Poirot lent his friend Roger Ackroyd startup capital and he has turned it into an empire. An empire with many pieces and many players, some of whom aren't happy. Before the tour concludes, Poirot will see Roger's unhappy secretary, Geoffrey Raymond, and Roger's distraught stepson, Ralph Paton, who is begging his father to not announce his engagement to Flora Ackroyd, Roger's niece, in this coming Sunday's paper, as well as a frantic phone call from Mrs. Ferrars. That night Mrs. Ferrars takes her own life and the next morning Roger asks Poirot to stop by his house. Poirot is disturbed to learn that Mrs. Ferrars was being blackmailed, though she refused to say who the culprit was. Poirot leaves as a dinner party arrives at Roger's house and he goes home to ruminate. Something isn't sitting right with him and he's worried for his friend. He has every reason to be worried because by the time Poirot returns to Roger's house later that evening Roger is dead, in a locked room. The sequence of events seems to be simple enough and Ralph Paton seems to be the culprit, but Poirot isn't so sure. He is reluctant to return to detection but to avenge his friend he must! And when another old friend arrives to help solve the crime it's like old times. Too bad it's old times that drove Poirot to the mallows.    

I went into this episode of Poirot expecting many changes from the source material. There are some things unique to literature that can not be replicated in a visual medium. A story narrated by the killer whilst simultaneously concealing their guilt from the reader, a trope that Christie used several times, would be virtually impossible to pull off for television, so in swoops the dramatist, Clive Exton, who restructures the story to a more traditional Poirot story. He takes Poirot, who was more a spectator, an outsider in the original story and puts him in the thick of it while bringing Chief Inspector Japp along for the ride, as we have seen in countless previous adventures. And that's what I missed most about The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, I missed how unique and original it was within Poirot's cannon. I missed this different kind of story that could have been told, instead we are given a framing device of the journal of the killer, which when you read the book is actually the book you are reading. What's more Exton upped the vitriol of our killer who is woefully miscast resulting in the denouement being totally unsatisfactory. Yet, despite all this it isn't a "bad" episode, it just could have been so much more, but it is thankfully saved because of the charm of Suchet and Jackson. The nuanced humor these two actors have developed over the years of working together brings joy to the screen because you can see how much fun they are having. What's more, Suchet is so effortlessly Poirot that he brings humor and pathos to the role in even the quietest of moments. My favorite scene is at the very beginning when Dr. Sheppard and Parker come over to Poirot's house. In the book I always thought it was odd that Poirot would retire to the country in order to raise mallows. Well, here we see a far more honest depiction of how that might have gone. His exasperation with his garden given with a sigh, a grunt, a flung vegetable, and a raised eyebrow are sheer perfection. In fact I couldn't help but think his babying of his garden combined with his frustration is something all of those who have taken to our gardens during quarantine are feeling. There's a little bit of Poirot in us all I think. 

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Adaptation, Agatha Christie, Clive Exton, David Suchet, Gardening, Jamie Bamber, Mallows, OCD, Philip Jackson, Poirot, Quarantine, Roaring Back to Reading, Suicide, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Unreliable Narrator

I am a brochure hoarder. Anywhere I go I grab one. The problem is what to do with them later? What's their purpose? They just take up space and yet you don't want to part with them. Unless they have a  place in a photo album or have a secondary function they are a waste of space and right now I'm all about downsizing. Therefore a brochure redesign is like a dream project for me. Because I can take it to the next level, making it functional and collectible. Though this assignment for school had two requirements, I had to use all the existing text in a current brochure while also using an interesting and unique fold. So I worked backwards. Whose brochure would I love to redesign and the answer quickly came to me, obviously The Jane Austen Centre in Bath. The next question was, what kind of fold? Well, for anyone like me who spends way too much time watching Jane Austen adaptations they covet getting a letter like Austen's characters, getting to crack the seal and unfold the paper. Therefore the fold became obvious, I would use a typical Regency letter fold.

What's unique about this fold is that it's based on one of Jane's own letters, which I scanned in and used as a background, drastically toned down to not interfere with the legibility of any information I needed to convey. While any brochure is functional to an extent I love that this made it a keepsake, like getting a letter from Austen herself. As for that red seal? No, it's not wax, but a faux wax seal sticker which can be purchased in bulk and used to add an air of authenticity. Ironically the seal in the picture is from another fandom I'm a part of. Yes, it's a seal for Hogwarts. Originally I wanted to take the wax seal further and create one in the centre's colors, but then I found out that during Jane Austen's time you could use only red or black wax, so it stayed red. Yes, I'm a stickler for certain things, also, the more you know, right?

The information in the brochure could basically be broken down into five categories: Jane Austen, Touring the Jane Austen Centre, the Gift Shop, the Tea Room, and Jane Austen's Bath. Using the centre's own logo as a starting point, I created four more icons to go with the subsections, a teacup, a reticule, a teapot, and an umbrella. These categories then easily divided the content into the sections that could correspond to the various panels the folds created. When you first open the brochure you get this nice little text area with all the information you could need with the headings set in a font based on Austen's own handwriting. In the smaller sections at the top I placed the valuable information of location, hours, and admission. But for me it was all about the interior of the brochure where I placed the map, where form and function combined in happy symmetry.

The entire interior was turned over to a map I drew in Photoshop with my Wacom. Yes. I drew a map of Bath with all the locations important to Jane Austen's life clearly marked. Why would I draw a map other than being totally OCD and always having a need to take a project to the next level? Because, to me, I find maps the most useful thing a brochure can give you. Therefore I figured I HAD to have a map. And while I haven't been to Bath I feel like I know it now. I drew out all the streets, and looked up all the names, I was not just an armchair traveler but an armchair detective, following Jane's life through the city she loathed. I hope one day to go to Bath, and before you ask, yes, I'm taking my own map. Though I also kind of want to see what would happen if I was left without a map. After this project could I find my way without any help? I have a feeling I could...

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Armchair Detective, Bath, Bicentenary Ball, Brochure, England, Hogwarts, Jane Austen, Jane Austen Centre, Letters, Maps, OCD, Redesign, School, Tea, Unique Fold, Wacom, Wax Seal

The Slow Regard of Silent Things by Patrick Rothfuss
Published by: DAW Hardcover
Publication Date: October 28th, 2014
Format: Hardcover, 176 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

Auri spends her time in the Underthing finding balance. She knows all the hidden tunnels and caverns beneath the University. It is a safe place and if Kvothe ever needs a safe space he can come to her, she has prepared for his arrival. She is broken, but she knows by moving the world, ever so slightly, that harmony can come and a feeling of contentment will reign, if just for a short while. Her days have struggles, food that must be found, soap that must be made, places that must be visited, and places that must be avoided. But at the end she knows where she needs to be and he'll come.

Yes, this isn't book three of The Kingkiller Chronicle. I think by now this has been well established and should be regarded as fact that this book isn't Doors of Stone or whatever the final book ends up being called. And you know what? That's OK. Yes, we all long for the final book, but here we get a look into this marvelous world from a different perspective, plus you might just learn to make some soap. To me it doesn't matter that this isn't book three, because this is better. I have always felt a connection to Auri and this book reaches out, and through her story makes a connection with all the other broken people in the world, of which I number.

Auri has always fascinated me. She is a gentle enigma in the greater story arc. Whether she is very important or just another character doesn't matter to me, she is just Auri, or as I see her, the Luna Lovegood of Temerant. You might think that's a crazy assessment, but seriously, think about it and you'll see the comparison isn't far off: the compassion, the innate understanding, being viewed as slightly off, yeah, she's Luna. If you're looking for big revelations for the rest of the series hidden in Auri's story you are going to be disappointed. We get this glimpse of her day to day life in the Underthing, and that's about all. Now you're probably wondering why you should read this if all we do is follow Auri around in her bizarre and hard to comprehend rituals. It's because this story taps into something deeper, a feeling inside us all of falling apart and what we do to keep going. Auri keeps going.

I am OCD, I have been as long as I can remember. I cope. I get along. I get through the day. Awhile back this wasn't the case. Awhile back there was obsessive counting and washing of hands and things had to be done just so and if something was not right I couldn't handle it. This isn't the kind of life I'd wish on anyone where you washed your hands till they bled. But there's something about living with it, with working your way through or finding a way to cope that gives you a greater understanding of other people. You see their pain, you are more empathetic. Reading about Auri I understood it all. I looked at her and saw what I once was and what I could be again. Pat nailed this flaw in us and how we cope to a genius degree. The way Auri keeps her world in balance by feeling what goes where. I just feel this understanding emanating from the book and I contentedly sigh.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Auri, Doors of Stone, Kvothe, OCD, Patrick Rothfuss, The Kingkiller Chronicles, The Name of the Wind, The Slow Regard of Silent Things, The Underthing, The Wise Man's Fear

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
Published by: Library of America
Publication Date: 1962
Format: Hardcover, 832 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy
"Merricat, said Connie, would you like a cup of tea?
Oh no, said Merricat, you'll poison me.
Merricat, said Connie, would you like to go to sleep?
Down in the boneyard ten feet deep!"

Mary Katherine Blackwood, called Merricat, and her sister Constance, have lived their life for the past six years shut away from the world caring for their Uncle Julian. Their only other companion is Merricat's cat Jonas. Merricat is the only one ever to leave the house, on Tuesdays and Fridays, which are bad days. As she walks to the store she can feel the eyes watching her. A good tip into town is one with minimal contact with the outside world, a bad trip is one that ends in taunting. The three remaining Blackwoods have been beyond the bounds of society behind the fence that Constance and Merricat's father erected before that fateful and fatal dinner. Constance was arrested six years ago because she was the only one who didn't use the sugar laced with the cyanide. Constance was the only one to survive that dinner without any aftereffects... Julian survived, but he was never able to walk again and his mind wanders, though that night never leaves him. Julian is dedicating what remains of his life to recount that final day. The day when he lost four of his family members, one of them his wife.

The aftermath of Constance's acquittal, despite everyone believing in her guilt, was that she shut out the world. Connie never ventures past her garden anymore. She spends her time cooking and looking after her two charges, keeping the world locked out. Merricat is just as paranoid of others as Constance, but she has buried treasure and symbolic items scattered throughout their land in a type of rustic magic to ward off everyone. One day she finds that her wards have failed and at that moment there is a knock on the door. Their cousin Charles has arrived. His branch of the Blackwoods severed all connections at the time of the trial, not even willing to take Merricat in, that night she was sent to bed without dinner and though it saved her life, it meant she was banished to an orphanage for a time. Charles does not have the best of intentions. He is avaricious, only seeing the money in everything and in his alliance with Connie, Julian and Merricat are just obstacles to move out of his way, nothing more. But Merricat won't go down without a fight. She has a feeling that it will be her left in the house with Constance, not Charles. Charles should remember, bad things have been known to happen to members of the Blackwood family.

This book is the most terrifying and accurate story of paranoia I think I have ever read. There's a part of me that is very antisocial and would rather be left to my books. I have easily gone a week without leaving the house and I can see some things in Merricat that I can relate to in her OCD behaviours. Yet, I find that this book has kind of cured me of all those feelings, at least on a cognitive level. All paranoia and agoraphobia has to face the test of implementation. It's all well and good to think you're ok, but you never know though until you try. Constance does try, but such a man as Charles as her "saviour" could never work, I was hoping he might go the way of the previous Blackwood, though more painfully, and Constance has Merricat. Merricat is 18 in this book, yet her behaviour is more like that of a 12 year old, her emotional development and well being stunted when the poisoning happened. Constance wonders if she was right to shut Merricat away from the world, but it seems to me a mutual decision. Merricat, despite being more willing to leave the house, is really suffering more, and very much a sociopath. She has far more rituals and dark thoughts than Constance ever had. There is the rigid schedule to maintain, there are the coins buried in the river bank, the doll under the rock, the blue marbles, and the book that was nailed to the tree. Even when Merricat isn't checking on them her thoughts dwell on the powers these items give her, the layer of protection she has. Like a person who has to turn the light on and off so many times before leaving, Merricat's life is built around these rituals that have evolved around her to protect the two sisters, who, despite everything, deeply love each other.

Yet, while their isolation from the world seems odd and haunting, it is not without cause. The villagers, more than the crime, made them what they are, or at least exacerbated the situation enough to cause them to turn inward. Coming to the house, taunting, cat calling, daring each other to go to the house where everyone died. Asking Connie to come out so they can see what a mass murderer looks like. "Merricat, said Connie, would you like a cup of tea?" Childish glee in their hatred of the hoity-toity and reclusive sisters is evident in the villagers. At the end of the book, when the villagers have to reluctantly help the sisters, they take the opportunity to unleash their "everyday evil." Because the poisoning only hurt the immediate family, while the bile that is brewing in the town has far greater scope. The mob mentality of people who appear normal is a far scarier thing than two agoraphobic girls peering through slits in the windows at a life they will never have nor want.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 2 comments  

Labels: Agoraphobia, Blackwoods, Merricat, Mob Mentality, OCD, Paranoia, Poison, Shirley Jackson, We Have Always Lived in the Castle