Week 7 Prompt

As someone with severe depression and anxiety, I am a major advocate for mental health, and I really related to and got a strong message from the book 13 Reasons Why. I believe it is a powerful text that shows us just how our words and actions affect the people around us. When the Netflix show based on the book came out there was a lot of backlash saying the book was pro-suicide. We defend books we love like we do close friends or family because that is what they become to us. I had to defend one of my favorite books to literally everyone who hadn’t read it based on what was being said about the show. I can say I have never watched the Netflix series, but the book tells a powerful story that everyone has an impact on our lives good or bad. I feel the book shows a valid side to depression that sometimes you can’t recover, it reinforced for me the belief that a person did not kill themselves but was killed by depression. Hannah’s depression was brought on by bullying, so when I read the article this week about how the author was accused of harassment, I was slightly shocked. I felt betrayed by a man I had never met and likely never will. Yet I felt like he owed to me to be the kind of person I expected because of a book he wrote, and I liked it.

 We are all human and make mistakes, I have never met, nor do I ever expect to meet, the perfect person. We all say things we regret and don’t mean. The same article went on to prove another valid point though to me, one person does not make the voice of a movement. Another book I love Furiously Happy is about depression and is more of a memoir, but it too shows the many sides of depression. 13 Reasons Why takes an extreme stance that is not found in Furiously Happy. I think both books are part of healthy dialogue on depression and suicide.

Books and authors take on new meaning to us as readers when the work is near to us for whatever reason. It makes it hard to like something when you know the creator did or stood for something you are against. I don’t agree with Jay Asher’s actions and it has caused a struggle in me to justify still liking his work after learning this about him. One thing I do know is I can’t change how that book makes me feel and what it has done for me but that doesn’t mean the author gets a pass. 

Underwood, Alexia. (2018) The #metoo Movement Hit the Literary World Hard This Week. It's Not the First Time. Retrieved from https://www.vox.com/2018/5/10/17323642/metoo-junot-diaz-allegations-nobel-literature-prize

Week 6 Prompt

I would do a Summer Camp theme display for our summer reading program. Ideally, I would do a different “Camp” for each genre but as we are focusing on only one genre, I will limit my focus to Horror. One of the displays I would do would be “Camp Crystal Lake” and fill the display with horror books and movies. This takes Horror out of its niche at Halloween and gives it more limelight. I would bring up Steven King titles in books and pair them with the movies, I would pull book and movie adaptations of each other and other general horror movies and books. I would make sure to include titles friendly for each age group, such as Goosebumps for the younger children. We could even do ghost books, a similar take on the blind date with a book but choose horror books instead. Do light descriptions and key notes about the book that may be a turnoff for some. But you don’t know what you are reading until you open the paper.

The Poison Thread

The Poison Thread

By: Laura Purcell

Synopsis

Ruth Butterham lived a rough life from a young age. She was tormented in school because she wasn’t as well off as the other girls. She found her place beside her mother embroidering and sewing, as soon as Ruth’s mother turns up pregnant and the family barely getting by as it was Ruth’s recreational assistance turns into a full-time job at 14. The baby dies after Ruth embroiders on her blanket the family falls apart, her father committing suicide and forcing her mother to “sell” Ruth into service of the dressmaker they were contracting with. As time progresses Ruth learns of deaths and misfortunes of others who she sewed for including her mother her suspicion grows that her sewing is cursed. When her mistress dies, she cannot help but believe it to be her own fault. Dorothea is a 25-year-old aristocrat who is secretly a phrenologist who lost her mother and lives with a father whose main goal is to get her married. While Dorothea’s is to be a good charitable person by Catholic standards. She spends her time at the Oakgate prison where she meets Ruth and is enraptured by the idea that a 16-year-old can have the skull of a killer and if it can change. “If we can detect vice in a timely manner and point the child down another path, the shape of the head, as well as the texture of the spirit may change.” The book is written in alternating perspectives from both girls, Ruth recounting her life to Dorothea and Dorothea muddling through it and her own life.

Characteristics of Horror

·         Has moments of gore described in detail

·         Unresolved Ending

·         Erratic Pacing

·         Dark and Foreboding Mood

·         Narrative told in alternating chapters

·         Vague Villain

Read A-Likes

·         Edgar Allen Poe

·         The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell

·         The Unseeing by Anna Mazzola

·         The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

Week 5 Prompt

I don’t think its right that one type of book gets reviewed all to pieces and other books get ignored. This can impact the library collection by increasing requests for “Best Sellers” because they have read a good review about it and they are the only books they are seeing reviewed. Then your collection has a large number of one type of book or too many copies of one book that will have to be weeded later on down the line, all because these are the books getting reviewed publicly.

I don’t think it is right to only print positive reviews because not everyone has a positive experience with a book. It's important to show both sides it will save people time and keep them from reading books that aren’t their taste. The only place I do not think this applies is on the book itself because these reviews are meant to help sell the book.  I think reviews are important for me personally because I do not purchase for a library. I read reviews as well as summaries when deciding what to read next. I check the reviews on the book, I know these are generally only good reviews meant to sell the book, but it is a good highlight of what people liked about the book the best.   When the reviews and summaries line up to something that sounds like my taste, I will check out the book. I also like to skim the first couple pages of the book as well to see if I like the writing style.

Kirkus Style Review of The Poison Thread

Set in Victorian England this gothic tale of a charitable aristocrat and a dressmaker turned maid who is in jail for killing her mistress with what she claims are supernatural abilities.

Ruth Butterham lived a rough life from a young age. She was tormented in school because she wasn’t as well off as the other girls. She found her place beside her mother embroidering and sewing, as soon as Ruth’s mother turns up pregnant and the family barely getting by as it was Ruth’s recreational assistance turns into a full-time job at 14. The baby dies after Ruth embroiders on her blanket the family falls apart, her father committing suicide and forcing her mother to “sell” Ruth into service of the dressmaker they were contracting with. As time progresses Ruth learns of deaths and misfortunes of others who she sewed for including her mother her suspicion grows that her sewing is cursed. When her mistress dies, she cannot help but believe it to be her own fault. Dorothea is a 25-year-old aristocrat who is secretly a phrenologist who lost her mother and lives with a father whose main goal is to get her married. While Dorothea’s is to be a good charitable person by Catholic standards. She spends her time at the Oakgate prison where she meets Ruth and is enraptured by the idea that a 16-year-old can have the skull of a killer and if it can change. “If we can detect vice  in a timely manner and point the child down another path, the shape of the head, as well as the texture of the spirit may change.” The book is written in alternating perspectives from both girls, Ruth recounting her life to Dorothea and Dorothea muddling through it and her own life. 

I liked the book but could not help but feel it was missing one more, even a short chapter from Ruth at the end. It didn’t have me burning through the pages, but it did keep me wondering until the end.

Secret Shopper

I needed help finding a horror book for our annotations, as horror is one of the genre’s I chose that I was not as familiar with as others.  I approached the gentleman manning the desk in the popular materials section of the library and told him I was looking for a good book that met the following requirements: adult, horror, fiction. I told him it needed to be a novel for a school assignment so an anthology would not work. He conducted a basic search that lead us mainly to anthologies with horror in the name or description. He then suggested a Stephen King book, this made sense to me as he is the biggest name in horror fiction. After checking out the selection of Stephen King books available I advised him they were too long for what I was wanting. So, we went back to the computer and did a more advanced search and was able to find a title that met the requirements I had provided. It was a successful visit, but it showed me just how much we rely on computers to fill the gap in what we don’t know. I felt the conversation move organically and less like an interview but still a little awkward. It may have gone better if I had gone in with a title I had just finished and was searching for something similar but having done that before I know the librarian would have most likely pulled the book up in their online catalog and found what titles it suggested to go with the one I had just completed. (I have done this before at a different branch in this system and this was the result)

I do not think that my approach to this was a major detriment however because we will have patrons that come in and say “I want a good scary book.” With minimal information on what else they want I knew I wanted a shorter book and I chose the title I did because it was gothic as well which is one of my areas of interest.