Just roll with it

Dungeons and Dragons is something I've always considered fun. It's taking a story and adding people and on the spot decisions. It's not something that's easy to do at times but does have a good time with it... usually. It isn't just for teens and adults either, there are children who can play with it, and they honestly love it! I started playing when I was away at school and it helped me make friends and actually understand my love for storytelling and meeting new people. I am able to play with friends still to this day and while it's not in person, I still have fun and give myself a chance to talk to new people. 

When I first read the book, I was iffy with it. I got frustrated and annoyed with some of the story because the parents and family come into the middle of the story, talking about things that I didn't even think mattered. I got the most annoyed with some of the storylines popping up out of nowhere. There were details that didn't need to be mentioned because they didn't affect the little girl who was the main character. 

But then I sat down and read the book again. I found a lot more information hiding within the story. Allow me to tell you the tale about Margaret, a little 6th grader girl who plays D&D and has a couple of worries hiding around the corners she doesn't look at. The idea of carrying a d20 with you is one that I wasn't expecting at first until I realized it was also a good way to get rid of fidgeting and kind of help decided on some details. Most of the ideas that we don't realize until later are unsaid and appear in her daydreams and nightmares. I found that this was a good representation of OCD and anxiety. It also takes in account of Margaret's feelings as a younger kiddo. 

It made me see the story through her eyes and how she was trying to understand all of these things happening with her, on top of trying to understand what monster is lurking on the school grounds. She's faced with a new school, making new friends and trying to understand all the things around her and her family. This is definitely a good way to talk about mental health with your friends or whoever you think would be interested in this book. 

An Appetite for Murder

Alrighty, time to buckle in once again and get back in business! This book was a doozy - I thought that I'd pick up a couple of new mysteries to just give myself the opportunity to catch up on some reading and just enjoy bits and pieces of my summer vacation. One of the books that I decided to get my hands on was "An Appetite for Murder" and it was....... interesting. I'm back on my cozy mystery kick and I will be honest - this wasn't the one for me. I was honestly more frustrated than amused by the story. It's the first in the series and it's about Hayley Snow who follows her then boyfriend to Key West and finds out that oops, she's the one that he cheated with. As she tries to work with her new lifestyle, her mom is trying to convince her to come back to New Jersey. When she goes to get back her things, she finds a dead body in her ex's place! Things turn for the worst when she finds out it was her soon to be boss and that Hayley's been framed and charged for the crime! 

~~~~~

Hayley is jobless, living with her college best friend in a boat house and yet somehow is able to pay for cat food and some really high-end places?? She's also able to pay $20 for a tarot reading every week? 

The cops keep going back to HER specifically for plotting this murder and don't think about hmmm, I don't maybe the receptionist could be a suspect, the other exes, MAYBE EVEN THE JERK BOYFRIEND? Hayley keeps talking about the ex and it honestly frustrated me and if I didn't get 200 pages in already, I would have dropped the book and gone "no, never again." Whenever she's not worried about the murder, she's obsessed with the ex-boyfriend and trying to get back her stuff from her ex. At 200 pages, there was nothing new on the murder, but Hayley had been taken to the police station two times at least. at 259, there was a glimpse that Chad might have been aimed at for the murder, but it was lackluster and didn't really bake anything fun in my brain. It's not needed and she's acting more like a 20-something than the 30-year-old she is. It's a red flag to be talking about him that much and he honestly didn't want anything to do with her half the time. 

I didn't mind the food quotes at the beginning of the chapters, but it got boring after a while. I would have liked to have seen some tips, or something found at the beginning of the chapters to kind of keep people going and interested. Another thing that threw me off was a HUGE lack of recipes. There's only 3 found in the back of the book and it's all having to do with eggplants, cookies and coffee cakes. There's not a single mention of this key lime pie that kills the girlfriend because if something is to die for, THEN GIVE THE RECIPE SO WE MAY TRY IT OURSELVES. As she goes through the different places for food critics, there's no recipe, there's no tips about the food itself. She talks about all of these delicious foods and that's.... it. She doesn't even show us the reviews that she writes fully, only small bits and pieces of it. We as the readers are left out of the loop, somehow being expected to know exactly how to make the food from her reviews.