Weekly Recap #19: Week of 9/17-9/23
/20 Comments/by Suzanne
Hey everyone! It’s time for another weekly recap post of all things happening on and off the blog. This week I’ll be linking to the Sunday Post, which is hosted by Caffeinated Book Reviewer and to Stacking the Shelves, which is hosted by Tynga’s Reviews.
So, the highlight of this week, by far, was celebrating my son’s 10th birthday. Can’t believe he’s now into the double digits! He is really just growing up way too fast. We’ve had a grand time celebrating though, with a birthday dinner on the actual day, lunch and frozen yogurt with Grandma yesterday, and then today we’ll cap it off with a party for him and his friends at the indoor trampoline park. He has reached that age where he mainly just wants gift cards so that he can buy what he wants, which was hard for some of us to adjust to since we like watching him unwrap gifts, but I have to admit that it did makes everyone’s shopping a lot easier this year so no one complained too much, lol.
Ian also scored 3 goals at yesterday’s soccer game, so yet another fabulous way to celebrate his birthday. He actually blew his dad and I away because, prior to yesterday, he had only scored 1 goal in all the years that he has played. His dad is his soccer coach and usually plays him in defensive positions so now he’s wondering if he has been playing him in the wrong position for all of these years. I don’t know how to answer that, but from a proud mom perspective, seeing him play up front and score all of those goals and actually have his teammates looking for him so they could give him another chance to score was very cool.
Because of all of the party preparations, etc., I’ve gotten a little behind on my blog comments, which is funny since one of my main posts of the week was specifically about commenting on blogs, haha. I’ll get caught up today after the party though so it’s all good. I didn’t get as much reading done as I had planned to either, but I did manage to finish The Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman, which was a wonderful read, and now I’m working on All the Crooked Saints by Maggie Stiefvater. Unfortunately, I’m struggling a bit with that one because of the pacing, but am still hoping to knock that out today so that I can move on to Dear Martin and Hillary’s new book, which I’m dying to read. My mom started it yesterday and she said it’s a very good read, but that she actually has to keep setting it down and walking away because it makes her mad about the election all over again. I’ll be curious to see if I have a similar reading experience.
Not too much else is going on in my world. I am excited about new fall shows starting up this week. I don’t have too many shows that I watch, but I am looking forward to the Young Sheldon spinoff since I love The Big Bang Theory so much.
Anyway, I think that’s it for me. Have a great week, everyone!
WHAT I POSTED LAST WEEK
- [17 Sep] Weekly Recap #18: Week of 9/10-9/16
- [18 Sep] Forest of a Thousand Lanterns by Julie C. Dao ★★★★
- [19 Sep] Top Ten Tuesday: Top 10 Books On My Fall Reading List
- [20 Sep] Can’t Wait Wednesday – Spotlight on THE WICKED DEEP by Shey Ernshaw
- [21 Sep] Discussion Post: The Struggles of Blog Commenting and Why We Should Do It Anyway
- [22 Sep] The Blackbird Season by Kate Moretti ★★★½
WHAT I’M READING THIS WEEK
UPCOMING REVIEWS
STACKING THE SHELVES
TOTALLY RANDOM
ARC Review: The Blackbird Season
/16 Comments/by SuzannePublished by Atria Books on September 26th 2017
Genres: Mystery, Thriller
Pages: 352
Source: Netgalley
Amazon
Goodreads
FTC Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley. All opinions are my own.
MY REVIEW:
Kate Moretti’s The Blackbird Season takes place in Mt. Oanoke, Pennsylvania. Mt. Oanoke is one of those small towns where everyone knows everyone else and where pretty much nothing ever happens. That is, until one day when a thousand dead birds plummet from the sky and land on the local high school baseball field. Since most of the town was there to watch their baseball team and beloved teacher and coach, Nate Winters, play, the rumor mill starts running rampant right away, as everyone tries to make sense out of what has happened. Some assume there is a logical explanation for the birds, while others see it is a bad omen, a sign of trouble to come.
Pretty soon, however, the mystery of the birds take a backseat when a news reporter prints a story alleging that Nate Winters is having an affair with one of his students, troubled teen Lucia Hamm. Without giving him a chance to prove that the story isn’t true, everyone in the town immediately turns on Nate. He goes from being the hometown hero to the town outcast and ultimately loses his job over the alleged affair. Lucia doesn’t help matters when she corroborates the story and tells everyone that she and Nate are in love, thus breathing even more life into this small town scandal and causing even Nate’s wife to question his innocence.
When, soon after, Lucia goes missing, all eyes turn to Nate as the most likely suspect and the reader is filled with questions:. Is Nate actually guilty of having an affair? If not, can he prove his innocence? What has happened to Lucia? Did Nate have anything to do with that since she made him look so bad? If the affair isn’t true, why would she lie about it?
One of my favorite parts of The Blackbird Season is the way in which the story is presented. It’s a character driven mystery that is told from the alternating points of view of Nate, his wife Alecia, troubled student Lucia, and perhaps the only person in town who believes Nate is innocent, his friend and colleague Bridget. I liked watching the story unfold in this way because as each piece of the puzzle is revealed, you get to see not only how Nate keeps getting himself into situations that make him look bad, but then you also get to watch those who are closest to him, his wife and his best friend, and their changing reactions when more and more details unfold about Nate and Lucia. Then finally, you also have the perspective of Lucia and see some of her motivations behind her actions and why she keeps approaching Nate.
If you enjoy a suspenseful read, you’ll probably enjoy The Blackbird Season. Moretti writes suspense very well and so there are lots of twists and turns along the way as we seek to unravel both the truth behind the alleged affair and the mystery of what happened to Lucia. I liked that the story kept me guessing, so much so that I changed my mind about whether Nate was innocent or guilty every few chapters. From that standpoint, it’s a wild ride and a solid read.
My biggest issue with The Blackbird Season was that this ended up being another of those books where none of the characters are very likeable or sympathetic. Since I typically enjoy books more when I can connect with at least one character, this made reading The Blackbird Season somewhat challenging. Nate Winters, in particular, just flat out got on my nerves. As a teacher, he should know better than to be creeping around on the internet keeping an eye on his students. Whether he means well or not, there’s no way that’s going to turn out well for him if other adults in the community find out. He’s one of those characters that just constantly makes bad choices and does stupid things that make him look guilty even if he’s probably completely innocent. If you’re being accused of sleeping with a student, for example, you don’t keep randomly meeting up with the student. The man just had no common sense and was infuriating because of it. I actually screamed at the book a couple of times because he was just so frustrating, lol.
I also wish the author had done a little more with the actual blackbird theme that runs through the book. The opening scene with all of the dead birds plunging onto the baseball field was fantastic and set an ominous tone for what I thought was going to be an atmospheric and creepy read, maybe even a bit supernatural, but then it just kind of fizzled and was mentioned occasionally in passing – that scientists were investigating the bird deaths, etc. Since more wasn’t made of it, it ended up just feeling unnecessary to the rest of the storyline and somewhat out of place, for me anyway.
If I hadn’t had the issue with not liking any of the characters, The Blackbird Season would have easily been a 4 star read for me. Even with not liking any of the characters, I was still drawn in enough by the mystery of the dead birds, the small town skewering the town hero over his alleged affair with a student, and that student’s subsequent mysterious disappearance that I just had to keep reading to find out what happened. If you enjoy a good mystery, I’d say The Blackbird Season is a good choice. If, like me, you just really need at least one likeable character, this book may or may not be a good fit. I hate to make the comparison since it’s so overdone, but if you enjoy books like Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train, you’d probably like this one too. If not, I’d probably say to pass on it.
Thanks to Netgalley, Kate Moretti, and Atria Books for providing me with an advanced copy of this book for review. This in no way shapes my opinion of the book.
GOODREADS SYNOPSIS
Known for novels featuring “great pacing and true surprises” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) and “nerve-shattering suspense” (Heather Gudenkauf, New York Time bestselling author), New York Times bestselling author Kate Moretti’s latest is the story of a scandal-torn Pennsylvania town and the aftermath of a troubled girl gone missing.
“Where did they come from? Why did they fall? The question would be asked a thousand times…
Until, of course, more important question arose, at which time everyone promptly forgot that a thousand birds fell on the town of Mount Oanoke at all.”
In a quiet Pennsylvania town, a thousand dead starlings fall onto a high school baseball field, unleashing a horrifying and unexpected chain of events that will rock the close-knit community.
Beloved baseball coach and teacher Nate Winters and his wife, Alicia, are well respected throughout town. That is, until one of the many reporters investigating the bizarre bird phenomenon catches Nate embracing a wayward student, Lucia Hamm, in front of a sleazy motel. Lucia soon buoys the scandal by claiming that she and Nate are engaged in an affair, throwing the town into an uproar…and leaving Alicia to wonder if her husband has a second life.
And when Lucia suddenly disappears, the police only to have one suspect: Nate.
Nate’s coworker and sole supporter, Bridget Harris, Lucia’s creative writing teacher, is determined to prove his innocence. She has Lucia’s class journal, and while some of the entries appear particularly damning to Nate’s case, others just don’t add up. Bridget knows the key to Nate’s exoneration and the truth of Lucia’s disappearance lie within the walls of the school and in the pages of that journal.
Told from the alternating points of view of Alicia, Nate, Lucia, and Bridget, The Blackbird Season is a haunting, psychologically nuanced suspense, filled with Kate Moretti’s signature “chillingly satisfying” (Publishers Weekly) twists and turns.
About Kate Moretti
Kate Moretti lives in Pennsylvania with her husband, two kids, and a dog. She’s worked in the pharmaceutical industry for ten years as a scientist, and has been an avid fiction reader her entire life.
She enjoys traveling and cooking, although with two kids, a day job, and writing, she doesn’t get to do those things as much as she’d like.
Her lifelong dream is to buy an old house with a secret passageway.
Discussion Post: The Struggles of Blog Commenting and Why We Should Do It Anyway
/43 Comments/by Suzanne
Two of my biggest struggles since I started blogging have been coming up with topics for discussion posts and commenting on blog posts. This week I decided to kill two birds with one stone and write a discussion post to share my thoughts on commenting on blog posts. Smart thinking, right? LOL!
An incident this past weekend with my husband is what has inspired this post. I was spending some time Saturday morning getting caught up on replying to everyone who had commented on my blog posts that week and then paying return visits to their blogs to see what they’ve posted since my last visit. My husband, eager to get on with the rest of our weekend plans, was hovering and pacing and asking me why I was spending so much time doing what I was doing: “Do you do this every week? For everyone who comments on your blog? Why? That just seems like too much work.”
Why Commenting is so Important
Well yeah, he’s right (Shhh, don’t tell him I said that!). Commenting is a lot of work and it does take a lot of time. But that said, unless you are just blogging for yourself and have no interest in becoming a part of the blogging community, I think it’s also one of the most important things that bloggers do. It’s important, not just because it’s a way to show support to your fellow bloggers, but also because the more you comment and put yourself out there, the more your own blog is visible to others in the community.
I don’t mean to make that sound self-serving though; I just mean that there are a TON of blogs out there. Unless you are extremely lucky, you can’t just start a blog and expect a Field of Dreams “If you build it, they will come” moment. No, with so many blogs out there, you have to do something to let people know that you’re out there too because it’s just so easy to get overlooked. Commenting is a great way to put yourself out there and start building a rapport with your fellow bloggers. It helps to build a sense of community rather than competition and I think that sense of community is important to many of us.
Arguments Against Commenting (And Why They’re Wrong):
- I don’t have time to comment on blogs. I’m too busy.
Although I can completely relate to this one, sorry, nope. Because of the reasons above, you have to make the time, no matter how busy you are. I’ll freely admit that, depending on how crazy my week is, sometimes it does take me a few days to reply to comments and pay that return visit to a commenter’s blog. But aren’t we all busy? I’m happy whenever I get comments back from fellow bloggers, whether it’s days or even weeks later, and I don’t think there are any bloggers out there who hold it against me if I don’t immediately reply to their comments either.
To help facilitate my blog commenting, I’ve actually started blocking out time for it on my calendar. I try to do 30 minutes a night at least twice during the week and then I’ll spend up to an hour on Saturday getting caught up the rest of the way. I used to just haphazardly comment here and there whenever I had a few minutes, but I feel more efficient and organized if I just build it into my daily routine.
I also prioritize when I comment. If you’re a regular visitor/commenter on my blog, you’re the first one I’m going to reply to and pay that return visit.
This is probably petty of me, but I will also stop commenting on a blog if I pay several visits and that blogger doesn’t reply to my comments or ever pay that return visit to my blog. It takes me a while to get to that point, usually weeks or even months since I know people are busy, but it does occasionally happen. It’s like I said above, there are just too many blogs out there and bloggers who want the interaction for me to waste my time on someone who clearly has no interest in me. I remember when I first started blogging, I was regularly visiting a very popular blog and no matter how many times I commented on her posts, she never once acknowledged me. I was also following her on twitter and I remember replying to a couple of her tweets and watching her go down the list of replies and skip right over mine to reply to her friends. That elitist/clique-like mentality was a real turnoff for me so I unfollowed her everywhere and haven’t visited her blog since.
- I never know what to say on other people’s blogs.
As a socially awkward person, I can totally relate to this one as well. But that said, is there really a wrong kind of comment to make on someone’s blog? (Okay, well obviously you wouldn’t want to blatantly insult someone and call them the worst blogger on the planet, haha), but other than that, it seems like the field is wide open for you to say anything that pops into your head. Well thought out comments are always nice, of course, but it’s just about being supportive so, for me, even a simple comment makes me happy.
- I don’t want to be the first one to comment on someone’s post.
I don’t subscribe to this idea, but I remember reading somewhere that people don’t generally like to be the first person to comment. Maybe it’s just the way my blog is set up, but my first thought was ‘How would I even know if I’m the first or not?’ Because of all of the ridiculous spam out there, my blog is set to ‘moderate’ comments so that I can screen for spam and approve the legit comments. For that reason, you might think you’re the first commenter but it really just means I haven’t had time to go in and approve any comments yet.
What I’m trying to say here is whether you’re the first or the 51st comment if you want to comment. And so what if you are the first? What’s wrong with being the first one? If it’s someone new to the community or just someone who doesn’t get a lot of comments, you’re probably going to make their day. And I personally love the thought of making someone’s day. 🙂
- I don’t want to comment just to comment.
I find this relatable as well in the sense that not all blog posts easily lend themselves to comment, but you can still pretty easily work around this. In cases like this, however, unless I’m really crunched for time, I simply look around the person’s blog until I find a post that works better for me.
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So there you have it, folks. My rambling, jumbled thoughts about commenting on blogs and why it’s such a crucial part of the blogging experience. Now, since this is a post about commenting, how about you leave me a comment and share your thoughts on the subject. J