Review: Mindfulness for Confidence by Tara Ward

Quick review for a quick read. This is probably the shortest book on mindfulness practice that I’ve read in a while. It specifically deals with one aspect – confidence – in a series of steps that spell out like so:

Step 1: ‘CON’ is for Contemplating Confidence
Step 2: ‘F’ is Fearing Confidence
Step 3: ‘I’ is for Invoking Your Confidence
Step 4: ‘D’ is for Dealing with Destructive Thoughts
Step 5: ‘E’ is for Embracing Confidence
Step 6: ‘N’ is for Saying No
Step 7: ‘T’ is for Taking it Forward

It’s a good step by step method and easy to do the meditations within (I found myself doing a few of the written practices in my bullet journal), but the drawback for someone new to meditation and wants something a little more vetted, this may be a little too open-ended and general. I did think it was worth the brief time taken to read and I found the exercises to be fun and thought-provoking, but I wish it had been a longer narrative to give more context and inspiration for these mindfulness practices.

Overall score: 2.5/5 stars.

Note: I received this as an ARC from NetGalley, from the publisher Arcturus.

Review: Dr. Who Series III, Volume 1: Hypothetical Gentleman

Quick review for a quick read. I almost forgot that I had this graphic novel as an ARC, but this is a series of two stories centered within the Dr. Who universe. The art ranges from highly detailed and life-like based on the respective incarnation of the 11th Doctor to more animated and lighthearted to suit the mood of the storyline. I think the vast variations in art styles threw me slightly as I was reading through it, but it still held my attention. I liked both storylines overall, with a slight preference for the very first story since it was more cohesive and intriguing.

Review: Blood Rose Rebellion (Blood Rose Rebellion #1) by Rosalyn Eves

Initial reaction: Long story short on my reflections: meh. It felt like it could’ve offered so much more to the table, but it ended up being a very banal read overall.

Full review:

It’s a pretty bad sign for me to put a book down for a while and not even want to come back to it just to finish the story because I quite literally have no sense of investment in it. But alas, such was the case with “Blood Rose Rebellion”. This took me forever to get through. There are times when I’ll slow my pace these days on a book that I enjoyed (I listen to audiobooks frequently when I’m commuting), but this was the case in the opposite direction – I didn’t care for this book, and it was a struggle for me to push through it. If I were a less patient person I probably would’ve put this book down in the first 1/3 of the book because the protagonist and conflict did not compel me to want to continue at all.

Review: Slip of the Tongue by Jessica Hawkins

Quick review for a rather compelling read. I probably think of this book on the same level as Megan Hart’s “Tear You Apart” – and considering how much I respect Megan Hart as a writer, that’s high praise, even if that wasn’t one of my favorite narratives in her bibliography. Jessica Hawkins’s writing pulled me into the novel from point one all the way to the very ending. I’m surprised how invested I was in this novel despite how frustrated I was with the very flawed cast of characters and their respective situations. Granted, I didn’t like the subject matter of this book (it deals with romantic relationships involving cheating), but I went into the book for the experience of the story. This narrative laid bare many of the complex emotions and flaws for each of the characters. I honestly understood and learned why each character acted and reacted the way they did. There are some clashes that feel formulaic for narratives of this genre, but I think Hawkins did a good job of adding layers of dimension, moral conflict and intimacy (physical, mental, emotional) throughout the narrative on more than one level.

Review: Little Deaths by Emma Flint

Quick review for a progressive read. I’ve gone back and forth in terms of my opinions on Emma Flint’s “Little Deaths”. I’ve heard the hype over this novel and it came recommended to me as a library read, but overall – I thought it was a mystery with some points of high tension and emotion, yet there were far too many places it dragged its heels and nearly lost my interest entirely. Ultimately, I muscled my way through the slower, meandering points (mostly from the POV of characters I really didn’t care that much about, a.k.a. The reporter in this tale). The ending was somewhat satisfying in terms of finally giving a resolution to the mystery, but I hated the fact that it took such a convoluted route.