BOOK REVIEW: This Will Be Funny Someday by Katie Henry

Never have I ever read a Katie Henry book until This Will Be Funny Someday after it came up while browsing on my Kindle Paperwhite. The reviews said it was “laugh-out-loud funny” and I knew I just had to give it a shot. WELL… let me tell you… this book was absolutely hilarious. I think part of me found it even more funny because I relate to the main character/narrator more than anyone could possibly understand! Let’s get started on what I thought…

Isabel Vance (or Izzy V to the comedy club world) is not your typical 16 year old girl. Born and raised in Chicago with her hot-shot attorney mother, hard-working father, and older twin siblings Charlotte and Peter, Isabel feels isolated from people, including her family. She’s not too social, other than around her boyfriend, Alex, who is extremely controlling and specifically chooses her friends. She’s been made to feel like her voice can’t be heard, so why try speaking? Everyone talks over her – her parents, her siblings, classmates, even Alex sometimes.

Until one day, when plans with her ever-busy mother fall through and she had already told Alex she couldn’t get together, Isabel is hiding from him when she sees him out on the street so he doesn’t catch her in a lie. She runs to hide in a small building, which we soon find out is a comedy club. Next thing you know, Isabel is on the stage.

After, she meets some friends, local college students – Mo, Jonah, and Will. They hit up local comedy clubs in their free time and perform stand-up. After seeing Isabel “perform” that day, they invite her to tag along sometime on their next comedy excursion (assuming she’s also a fellow college student, and not a 16 tear old high school junior).

Long story short, so as to not ruin the whole story, we see “Izzy V” transform through this book. She learns how toxic her relationship is with Alex, recreates an old friendship she had with her classmate Naomi, and also has relationships blossom with both her sister Charlotte and her mother. Eventually, after many nights out together, helping Izzy prepare for stand-up gigs, and performances in different clubs, the truth comes out about Isabel’s real age and real life. Will Izzy and Mo remain as tight knit as they were?

GO READ IT! This book made me LOL on multiple occasions. I read 20 pages one day and a few days later read the other 380. SO so awesome.

Follow Isabel Vance, the shy, quiet, isolated teen on her journey to becoming Izzy, the bold, confident, outspoken woman she always should have been.

Has anyone else read this one?! What’d you think??

Weekend’s just about over. Keep reading!!

Tidying Up for Spring!

I’ve been on this roll lately where all I want to do is clean! I used to be really lackadaisical about certain things that my mom was always super uptight about – a dish in the sink, random things on the table/counter, miscellaneous clutter…

NOW… I DON’T KNOW WHY… all I do is clean. I wake up and I’m itching to wipe things down, clean my sink and counters, clean the bathroom, vacuum, do laundry… and I feel like it never ends.

I’m not dirty, nor have I ever been dirty. I’m more… messy, if you will.

I recently stumbled upon Tidying Up With Marie Kondo on Netflix after I saw her appear on The Ellen Show. First of all – Marie Kondo is the most adorable little thing on the planet. If I were as tiny as her, some small clutter would probably overwhelm me too… nonetheless, she has great tips for everyone!

I’ve always been sort of a clothing hoarder… I never was able to really go shopping when I was growing up. I had the same clothes forever and I lived off hand-me-downs. I guess I’ve always had some sort of attachment to clothing with an underlying thought that if I get rid of an item, I’ll never have anything like it again.

Wrong-o. I don’t need them all. I don’t need 15 white tank tops, half that look like I’ve had them since I was 15 myself (which is very likely…). I don’t need knit sweaters from 2007 that have more holes in them that were originally there. I don’t need combat boots from 2009 with a zipper that barely works anymore. I can get a new pair. I don’t need t-shirts from events and concerts from 2004. Those take up a whole drawer…

So… let the purge begin! Out go the clothes.. in go the… drawer and closet fresheners? I can’t afford a new wardrobe right now, let’s be real. But I can live with what I’ve got.

I’m also obsessed with mopping my floors. I feel like they can never be clean enough. Is this a new found OCD I have?

What are your organization hacks? What kind of purging are you doing in your house this season? Talk to me!

Happy Tuesday!

Join Me In My Life-Changing Journey…

WARNING: This blog post contains graphic content and may be sensitive to some. If this is too much for you, you may unfollow me or simply leave the post alone. If this is somewhat awesome to you, please share my post with others (and let me know!).

So… no, it’s not a bookish post, but I’m hoping y’all will read anyways!

I haven’t been reading much – between school, all of my doctor’s visits, and this recovery in general, I’ve been a little neglectful of my books, but I promise I’ll get back to reading and reviewing soon!

As I have mentioned in my other blog posts, I am going through a medical journey. Last night, I decided to finally reveal what I am going through on my personal Facebook page and I received such an overwhelming outpouring of positivity and support that I decided to share with the whole world, including my fellow bloggers!

I will begin with the backstory…

In 1994, I was born with a rare skin condition that left me with pre-melanomic cells, with a high likelihood of becoming metastatic melanoma. Doctors decided to take all precautions necessary and remove the concerning marks, beginning with a giant congenital nevus that was splayed from the left side of my torso around to my back. This surgery was done by an amazing plastic surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston when I was 8 months old, just old enough to go through a procedure like this. The surgery was done over 8 days, including excision of skin and the addition of skin grafts. Unfortunately, I do not have any pictures of this time… Pictures weren’t as easily taken and kept back in the 90’s as they are now on all of our digital platforms.

Below are 3 photos that show you what the scar has looked like over the years – I have never been ashamed of my body, scared to display my scars to the world, or even sensitive to the subject. It is a part of who I am and a part of my story.

If these are gross, repulsive, or even scary to you, please step away. They will only get more graphic as we go.

A couple months ago I met with a new plastic surgeon (since my wonderful surgeon from the 90s has retired) about something on my face. Little did I know that this would turn into having my scar REMOVED! Little did I know, if I want to have children, this procedure is necessary and I am not getting any younger so I said, “let’s do it!”

It has been an uncomfortable struggle, but I know every minute will be worth it in the end.

I have 4 tissue expanders located subdermally – two in my torso and two in my back. Tissue expansion is often seen done in the head, arms, or legs for burn victims and is not often done in trunk of the body. I am rare, tell me something I don’t know.

The expanders are filled up twice a week with saline solution – the main goal is for the expanders to stretch the healthy skin so that once they are big enough (about the size of a full grown eggplant), the scar can be excised and my trunk can be covered with the new grown skin.

Below are 4 photos I took yesterday (11/5/2018) after my 3rd week of fill-ups. These are graphic.

Some questions to answer:

• Yes, it is painful, especially the days of fill-ups.
• Yes, I can only sleep in one position.
• Yes, they can pop! I have to be mindful of sharp edges, even pen tips.
• Yes, I feel like the Pillsbury Dough Boy or the Michelin Man.

 

I wanted to post something since it’s been so long, but I didn’t have any material. This is my personal blog so I decided to get personal!

I hope you will all continue to follow and support me through this journey. I am so grateful for this experience and would be even more grateful if I had a team of supporters behind me!

Thanks for reading 🙂

Happy Tuesday!

Long Time, No Post! (Ft. Review of The Identicals)

HELLO!

I am sincerely sorry for my absence. No one likes a blogger who’s inconsistent and doesn’t post… but when depression strikes, everything is left behind.

SO… what have I been up to? Well…

Last week I read The Identicals by Elin Hilderbrand… in approximately… 8 hours total?

AWESOME read. Honestly, probably one of her best ones. I am an avid Elin Hilderbrand fan – the only books of hers I haven’t read are her winter short stories and Silver Girl, which I just picked up at my library today! Oh and Winter in Paradise, but it’s new enough that it’s acceptable that I haven’t read it yet… and the library didn’t have it so… boooooo 😦

Here is my Goodreads review!

The Identicals by Elin Hilderbrand

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Physically identical, but polar opposite personalities.

Hilderbrand depicts a story of identical twins Tabitha and Harper Frost who were separated from each other when their parents decided to divorce as they went to college. Before they left, the two played a game of rock-paper-scissors to decide who was going with their father Billy and who was staying with their high-strung, money hungry, designer mother Eleanor Roxie-Frost.

That game of rock-paper-scissors changed their lives forever.

Separated by 11 miles of ocean, Harper resides on Martha’s Vineyard with her father while Tabitha resides on Nantucket with her mother and her 16 year old daughter Ansley. When tragedy strikes the family, it’s time to reconnect and work together as a family to get through their hardship.

After 14 years apart (with a small meet-up in the middle when Tabitha had struggles with a premature baby), Tabitha and Harper are forced to reckon with their past and have each other’s backs. Will they reconcile or will it all blow up in shambles?

Hilderbrand writes, yet again, another novel that pulls your heartstrings and keeps you turning the pages. As a long-time fan of Hilderbrand, I have to say this was one of my favorites. One of my favorite things about Hilderbrand is that she knows Nantucket and the state of Massachusetts so well that when she writes a setting in her story, it is so ecclecticly vibrant in description that you feel like you’re right there in the story.

View all my reviews

 

I recently decided to obtain a library card because I am currently unemployed due to medical reasons and I can no longer afford my book obsession. Today, I had myself a little library mini-haul.

What did I pick up?

Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult

Silver Girl by Elin Hilderbrand

Maybe in Another Life by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Finding Emotional Balance: A Guide for Women by Merry Noel Miller

 

Some may think – that last one seems a little out of place considering the genre of the other three. I decided to pick it up becuase I am currently experiencing one of the worst bouts of depression in all my years of life. Sometimes, not even a book can take me away from the reality of it all like it usually does for me. I had to do something… So I’ve decided to start with that one. So far, so good. I’ve only read 42 pages and I’m completely enlightened about the woman’s body and mind. I don’t feel out of place or alone; so many others are going through exactly what I am.

I was reading All Fall Down by Jennifer Weiner… I did not finish (although I probably will at some point because one of my pet peeves is leaving a book unfinished regardless of whether or not I enjoyed it). I ordinarily adore and admire Weiner’s writing, but this one seemed redundant more than anything.

Thoughts? I’d love to hear from you, especially during this tough time.

Happy Friday! TGIF

xo – liv