Transitive Verve

A recent issue of Real Simple  magazine featured an article where writers, artists, and other influences described a fictional female character who really helped shaped them as people. Responses ran the gamut from literary heroines and television characters, and even included some whom I would choose as well. I thought I would chime in with a list of my own here, to pay homage to the girls and women who aren't just my favorites, but who actually made me ME. Ramona Quimby Aside from Disney fairy tales, Ramona  books are some of the earliest books I remember reading and getting REALLY into. (I read all the books, I listened to audiobooks, and I even borrowed videotapes of the tv show from the library.) I guess I was "in the fandom" before I knew anything about the idea of being in a fandom. The Quimby household felt very different from mine at that age, when I felt "more Vietnamese" than I did as I got older, but so much of what eventually became my worldv...

Valentine's Day is coming, and if you happen to be unattached, you may be looking forward to spending some time with your favorite book boyfriend. Hell, I'm even in a relationship myself, and I will probably end up spending Valentine's Day with a book. (Though, this is because we choose not to celebrate, so don't feel bad for me or anything.) I thought I would take some time to make a list of some of my favorite dudes. These are the guys who make me swoon every time I read, who are just too precious cinnamon-roll-y for the real world, but whom I love all the same. Note: I fully acknowledge that this post is absolutely heteronormative. Also note: For any teenaged YA guys that I choose, that crush is coming from Teenaged Me. Or I'm projecting them forward into adulthood. I am not literally imagining mid-30s me with a teenage boyfriend, because that would be Not Okay. Also ALSO note: Spoiler warnings for all the books listed below. There were MANY I could...

Hey! A different sort of post than usual: since September, I have gotten SUPER into bullet journaling , and one of the things I've been trying to do every month is to dedicate a page to a literary quote about that month. Here's what I currently have in my BuJo, having now set up everything for the rest of 2016:

I found out today that Jonathan Crombie, who played Gilbert Blythe in the three tv movie adaptations of Anne of Green Gables , passed away a few days ago . I never saw him in anything else (though I hear he was a wonderful, talented actor and a kind, warm person), but I'm feeling sadness all the same, because he wasn't just an actor playing a role - he was the physical embodiment of a most beloved character and one half of possibly my favorite romantic pairing in all of literature. When I was young, my parents went through spurts when they decided that we shouldn't have cable, but when we did, I would sometimes catch this movie about this red-headed girl who cracked a slate over a boy's head when he called her "Carrots." And then she would keep getting in trouble in funny ways, like when she tried to dye her hair black, but then it turned green, or when she accidentally got her best friend drunk. I got so swept up in the story, and I would keep tuning int...