Thrifty Geek's Library- New Year's Eve 2022 Book Reviews.

 Happy New Year's Eve Book Friends,

 Well we have arrived at the last day of the year and I thought what better way to end it than to make a Library post for my remaining books. If you look on my Goodreads it says I've read 24 of the 20 book goal, I've actually read 28 books, most of these books are ones I read for my job, and four of them apparently haven't been published yet or made it onto Goodreads. You'll find my job books I only give stars and no written reviews, because that's what I do for my job is write reviews, and I don't want to take away from that, so I just give the stars that correlate to my rating. Upside reading for work is forcing me to get back into reading despite my attention span issues, but it does take up the majority of my reading, and I figured I'm reading them, so they should count toward my Goodreads goal if their on there. 

So these last five books are my personal readings I hadn't wrote about yet this year. I do hope up my personal readings this next year so the majority of my books aren't work related, but we'll see!

Haunted on Bourbon Street (Jade Cahoun #1) by Deanna Chase

This was a fun book. It's always a fun time when I read books in this universe, I've read a couple of the Pyper stories before this. I love a lot of things with this world, the first being the location, New Orleans. I have always been interested in visiting the area, and this book lets me do that. I love the romance scenes  are very satisfying to read. I hate when I've gone for a romances, or novels that include a romance, and the romantic scenes fall short, but this delivers. There's also a variety of supernaturally empowered people. Witches, ghosts, angels, and empaths are some of the beings you will find here.

My only issue with the book is it was too short, and because it was short, things had to move at a faster pace. This led to things like explanations of powers, or beings, feel on occasion like a drive by info dump, before rushing on with the story. I gave this four stars on Goodreads.

So, if you are looking for a quick read fun little magical read to lift your spirits, or wet your romantic appetite, I highly recommend this book.

If On A Winter's Night A Traveler by Italo Calvino
 

This book is the story of readers, writers and books, as best as I can glean from it. You take on the role of the Reader, who seeks out the book: If On A Winter's Night A Traveler, a mess up in printing leaves it unfinished and sends you to find it only to begin a journey that takes you through other unfinished reads. Along the way you intercept another reader who becomes part of your complex story. I first heard of this on I believe Keri Smith's blog and it's been on my library request list a while, and they finally got it. 

I going to be honest I'm not sure how to review this. It's an amazing concept, you are a character, and I found myself wanting to know where this story went. It's also a frustrating read.  You're having to stop reading pieces of other stories many which didn't retain my interest for long. I mean I'm pretty sure that was the idea was for you to feel how your story character is feeling, but I'm not feeling frustrated cause I can't finish the snippets of books, I'm frustrated cause I'm having to read them. There was also times parts of it seemed to ramble, just ramble, and I was internally screaming just get to the point! I almost DNF'ed it cause it just agitated me. The last couple chapters in the main story line your in started to make no sense, your wondering how'd we get to where we were to here, then bam the last tiny chapter is just thrown at you. I will say I liked how the end ties all the books you've endured together, but I'll be honest I breathed a inner sigh of relief I was finished. I had a hard time deciding if I liked or disliked it, also it's hard to say if it did or didn't live up to what I hoped. I'm also torn as to whether to attempt to add a copy it to my permanent collection or not. I mean it's unique and would be a nice addition, but the fact I had to force myself to read it most the time, makes me worry I would never pick it up again. It's just a book I don't know what to do with.

I'm not sure how to rate this on Goodreads, I'd say maybe 3 and 3/4 stars, but they don't do halves, cause it is worth more that middle ground three, but not a solid four. I definitely recommend you read this once. If they gave test to readers to test their reading ability, this book would be the final exam. 

50 Ways To Hex Your Lover by Linda Wisdom
 

This romance involves the witch Jasmine (Jazz) and Nikolai a vampire, who have been lovers and adversaries throughout their long lives. Fate has brought them once again together as they try to figure out who's been taking vampires and possibly killing them. The path leads them back to an old foe with a score to settle. Will they survive? Read to find out.
This was a fun read I came across at the thrift store and bought on a whim. I enjoyed the characters in this book, populated with interesting people and creatures. I love the fantastical places within the normal world. I found Irma the ghost that haunts Jazz's car particularly annoying, she really grated on my nerves, which might have been done on purpose by the writer. The romance scenes where unique, but didn't do nothing for me. I find this to be a frequent problem lately when I read romance books, so it may not be the work's fault just my pickiness. So disregard that last bit of review. 
This is a fun little read that I recommend if you like your romances with a fantastical elements, strange creatures, and some sass.

Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor                                                                                                          

This was a YA that came up a lot with booktubers in the past few years so this year I finally checked it out from my library and read it. It's the story of Lazlo Strange an orphan who has a life long fascination with a city everybody calls Weep. He remembers the day the original name was erased from everyone's mind. He eventually become a librarian at a large library, where he's been writing books of research about the city. One day a group from Weep arrives looking for people to help them with an issue the city has. Lazlo sees this as his opportunity to achieve his dream.

I enjoyed this, it was a fun read. Janine over at This Story Ain't Over listed this on her Cozy Read Guide and I'm opt to agree with her on that. It was a cozy little read. You just felt no need to hurry just follow where the story took you. It was a book were there was no clear villains, except maybe the girl looking woman with the ability to control spirits, yeah she started out punishing those who hurt her family, but she's kind of towing that edge, and she really gives me the creeps. This was beautifully written, and the mystery of Weep kept you intrigued wanting to figure it out. The ending was a little heart breaking, but it made me want to continue the series.

This was actually a five star read for me, because it was so well written. If you love a fun romp into the world of dreams and dreamers then this is a book for you.

Queens of Geek by Jen Wilde

This is the geeky YA about three friends attending SupaCon, one of the world's biggest conventions. Charlie a vlogger who's found fame in the movies is excited to be a VIP, but is dealing with the break up with her costar, but will a fellow vlogger help her heal from that hurt. Then there's Taylor who's trying to step out of her comfort zone for the sake of her fandom, and wondering where she stands with her friend and crush Jamie. Can thesy over come their obstacles, find love, and have an epic con? Read and see...

This was a book I found at Goodwill, and when I saw the word geek I honed in on it. Being a geek and attempting to be a writer of geeky stories myself I was very interested in reading this book. I have to say the writer you can tell is a fellow geek, because they capture the fandom life so well the good and the bad, I'm just reading this like yep they know what their talking about. I love we have a love interest who is full bodied. I actually can see myself in a book. I have often bemoaned the lack of larger people in romance novels and they gave us one. She also has anxiety issues which I have as well. I wish this book had come out when I was a young adult, it may have been nice to see someone like me in a book. I devoured this book and it was another five star reading on Goodreads.

If your a geek like me who wants to see a geek laced YA Romance this story is for you.

Best Books of the Year

The Story Ain't Over recently did their Top 10 Favorite Books of 2022. This got me thinking about my own top list. I don't have ten since most of mine have been work books, which  I don't discuss here, and I really haven't read enough books for pleasure that I can craft a top ten, but I do have three that stood out: The Ex Hex by Erin Sterling, Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor, and Queens of Geek by Jen Wilde. These three managed to get five stars of of me on Goodreads and are the over achievers for 2022.

Goals For Next Year

I'm wanting to take time to read through my collection of Mercedes Lackey's Velgarth universe. I have almost if not 30 books in this world, and I've been inspired to read through it and make Thrifty Geek's Library posts about the read through. I also have seen the latest book in the Ex Hex series is out which I had forgot about coming out, so I totally have to squeeze that in. I'm hoping that my library will get the other books in the Once Upon A Con series by Ashley Poston, which she's also released a Rom-Com called The Dead Romantics, that I want to check out. As I mentioned I wanna beef up my personal reads, and I feel like I'm going to be getting off to a good start.

I hope 2022 has been good for you guys, and may 2023 be even better. Please be smart tonight in your celebrating, don't drink and drive, and God bless you in the new year.

*Thrifty Geek*

*Update*

I finished my latest book before midnight so it's 29 books for this year!

Of Ramen Bowls and Detours

 Welcome My Friends,

Well we've come to the last post of the year, possibly, actually may finish with a Thrifty Geek Library New Years Eve Wrap-Up post, but don't hold me to it! We had a good holiday this year, except a minor issue of our truck battery dying and making us all late, but it was still good. I hope everyone's holiday was well.

I'm going to back up to five days before Christmas, due to  my therapy appointment, Amber and I decided to go and hang out in Asheville that day afterwards. This was my first official in person visit since the start of the pandemic. It was okay, not bad, not stellar, and the usual getting a little annoyed with my therapist.  After my session we headed out in search of lunch and ways to wash off therapy.

Itto Ramen Bar and Tapas

Fangirl has been wanting to go to this Ramen Bar on Haywood Street for a while, well Tuesday was the day we finally went. It was a lovely restaurant, the waiter was good about coming to check on us, and I like there was a window where you could see the food being prepared. I guess it's because of the book I've been writing about a restaurant, but I've been finding being able to see into the kitchen a cool thing. The menu was on the place mats, and filled with a nice selection of ramen and tapas. We started with appetizers of Takoyaki balls, which we were happy to see offered. 

 

For the uninitiated we also call them octopus balls. They are these deep fried balls that have chopped octopus in it, and these also contain seaweed powder and brown rice flour, their capped off with bonito flakes. These came out nice and hot. These large balls had some great flavors to savor, I  savored them so much I was eating the left over bonito flakes because it was so good. I will say those flakes are hard to pick up with chopsticks, to think I use to pick up M&M's with ease with chopsticks.

For our main course we each got a ramen bowl Fangirl went tithe the Itto Seafood Ramen:

This dish contains their original broth, fresh ramen, grilled shrimp, fish cakes, crab stick, scallions, and a seasoned boiled egg. 

I went with the Itto Deluxe Ramen, because I'm so deluxe. *laughs*

This delectable bowl has the same broth, noodles, scallions and egg like the previous dish, but this one contains black garlic oil in the broth, chashu pork, and bamboo shoots. This was so delicious, best ramen I've had. You have to keep in mind the only ramen I've had before this was the little packets you find in grocery stores, which is good, but this was epic. This was also my first time having bamboo shoost, they were so good, they really absorb those glorious flavors.

Now they do offer forks for the chopstick challenged, but I wanted to give eating noodles a go despite being given a fork. I managed to splatter my shirt, which had the upside of me smelling like my awesome lunch, downside I was hungry all day. Luckily this broth makes two servings, and we had some take out for later, this still tasted great reheated for my supper, I just got to remember next time to leave some pork and some more bamboo shoots so I can have a fuller experience with my second meal.

Retail Therapy and Detours

Down the road from Itto's was Morgan's Comics, which you know we love them here. So I made a few purchases here. One was the Wonder Woman: Come Back to Me Comic. 

I've yet to read it since I was caught up in the holiday and all. My second find is one I've been trying to find for a few months since I noticed they had a stack of Magic the Gathering single cards for sale. 

Now I don't know much about what are good cards or rare, except maybe Black Lotus, is that even right, but the reason I searched months through this stack wasn't for the rarity, it was the artist. This card was done by Pete Venters, who is the husband of the Lady of the Manners of the Gothic Charm School. I love this blog and follow her on Tumblr and Instagram.  I'm not Goth, but I have Gothy Tendencies. I don't know if there's a title for what I am in the Goth community, but some of my interests align with Goth interests. I've been looking through these cards a little at the time searching for it and I have been victorious!

So from there we decided to hit up Comic Envy, though the journey wasn't so smooth getting there. Fangirl missed the exit and then thought she was on the right street to get to Merrimon Avenue, this lead us to a lot of side streets and neighborhoods in and around Downtown Asheville. Upside I saw some sides of Asheville I don't often see, like one person's yard that had an archway filled with wind chimes, I also discovered the location of Chicken Alley.

It's a haunted alley with amazing murals including this chicken one by artist Molly Musk. I'd always been drawn to it's art that I'd see online, but on the local news one Halloween they had a segment about the ghost, which you can read about in the above link. This made it even more interesting.

We eventually made it to Comic Envy and perused the store. I didn't find any comic offerings to tempt me, but I did internally squee over the Grogu figures and this Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Gift Box with apron and cookbook inside.

We then invaded the Asheville Mall where we ogled the the fandom things at Hot Topic and Box Lunch while their scanners went wonky. Fangirl had a blow to her wallet. She's been really getting into One Piece an she saw a large Luffy plushie at Hot Topic that she bought, then a grab bag themed around the show. Upon opening the bag she found a smaller plushie that was practically like the bigger one, if she'd only known. 

After that we hit up one of the local Asian Markets, so Fangirl could stock up on her snack food. I think I need to save a little money to get me some snacks, I love Pocky and Red Bean Moochi, it'd be nice to have in addition to my regular snacks. We then went to the big Goodwill in Asheville. I made a couple holiday purchases there.

I heard from some customers there was the possibilty of snow that night, I had planned on getting the rest of my Christmas when I was going out shopping with my Granny the next day, but if it snowed, a bunch of Christmas wouldn't happen. So I had Fangirl take me to Dollar Tree and I finished my holiday shopping. 

After a slight traffic issue, I enjoyed looking at what Holiday lights I could since we didn't get to go looking this year, I even had her drive through one of my favorite areas. 

All in all it was a fun preChristmas outing. Sadly it was the first domino that killed my sleep which made the next few days rough mental health wise, but I got through the crazy moments.  

Well there's another venture posted. I hope this final week of 2022 treats you well, it's been a rough year for me, but it's had it's good moments. I hopefully will see you all back here New Years Eve! Have fun, eat much, God bless.

*Thrifty Geek*

The Smoky Mountain Geek Expo 2022 and the Twenty Year Reunion

 Hello Friends, 

Today we continue our look at events past that I really should have posted months ago. In this post we are going to discuss the Smoky Mountain Geek Expo. It was the first year of Waynesville, North Carolina's first convention. To actually have a convention in my neck of the woods is amazing. I was excited that I didn't have to get up so early to get somewhere to find parking.

 

The costumes: 

I was the 11th Doctor... Again. I had plans to unveil my new costume, but complications kept me from getting it done, so I went with my standby.

Fangirl was Willow from The Owl House. It was fun seeing this costume come together over time. There's even a little bottle of Etta's Elixir on her belt.

 

The Convention:

It was a small convention, but not a bad showing with over 1,150 guests according to their Facebook Page.

It was good seeing vendors that I was familiar with from other conventions. I felt like I was getting really familiar with the regional Geek Vendor Community more that I had before, I think it's because I attended multiple Geekish events this year instead of just one. 

We saw our friends from Morgan's Comics. I know I talk about these guys often here, but they are our most local store and the Asheville comic shop we most frequent. So if your in West Asheville check them out!

There was a lot of cool signs at this thing some offering protection in these uncertain times:

Others were a beautiful pen rhyme basically telling "you break it you bought it":

The Nerdy Old Men Podcast were recording there that day. They were kind enough to let me get a picture of them while they were getting things ready, so go check them out!

We saw some good costumes the was a person dressed as Edric Blight from The Owl House. They shared some of their Moo-chi with us:

 

We saw this Hagrid which left me a little sad, due to the fact Robbie Coltrane had passed recently.

It's Marvel's Biggest Fans

 

I think this angel has been following me. I saw him at the WNC Comic Con now here, I think it's the sam vendor. I think in addition to Thursdays he should be the Angel of Conventions, well one of them at least.

We were only there a couple hours, but we had a lot of fun:

Still won't work on wood!!!!

After the con we stopped for some Burger King and went to Fangirl's house where we chowed down while watching Warehouse 13. I also finally got to meet her dog Kiki, named for Kiki's Delivery Service. 

The Barely Domesticated Kiki lounging in her natural habitat.

After a respite it was off to our second event our 20 Year Class Reunion:

It was great seeing old friends it was especially great to see the Captain in person after three years due to Covid. I was so happy to see her.

All Hail the Captain!

It was a fun night I got to see a lot of friends I haven't seen in person for years, my voice was horse for talking over the DJ's music, but it was fun. The night ended with us taking Fangirl to her car she parked a little ways away. I gave her her gifts I've had over the last few years for her, including this Holiday. I also got to properly meet her driving buddy Jack:

Don't you just love my friends? We are fun people what can I say. We said our goodbyes then headed for home. I was pooped afterwards understandably. 

Well I hope the rest of your weekend is good, God bless, and wave to the skeletons in passenger seats, it's only polite.

*Thrifty Geek*

Upstate Renaissance Faire & Medieval Market 2022

Hello my Rennie Friends,

So a few months ago Fangirl and I attended the Upstate Renaissance Faire & Medieval Market in South Carolina. Fangirl had worked the faire before and thought I'd enjoy it. I'd been missing going to a faire since the one in Asheville said adieu in 2005. 

We left at the butt crack of dawn as the Captain's family would say. It was rainy and we hoped the faire being and hour and a half away would be out of it. We stopped for a McD's breakfast. Just a little something to give us a pick me up. 

Due to not getting any sleep the night before I was tired. I'd hoped to nap while going there, but if I did it was like a minute or two. I enjoyed the new places I was seeing, noting the Dollar Generals every few miles on the road till we got to Greer.

Sadly the rain was here as well, but we were going to enjoy it anyway. Even if the lawn had ton of  puddles. Fangirl purchased us some umbrellas at the previously mentioned Dollar Generals:

I was so happy to get to wear my dress I hadn't wore since the year of the Captains wedding where I got it, and the same year I wore it to be a dragon tamer. The hat I'm wearing I got at the 2004 Mountain Renaissance Adventure Faire.

 

 

Fangirl couldn't traverse some parts of the puddled lawn due to her balance issues she still has from her medical problems last year, so she'd find a seat and let me wander the faire so I could see it all.

It was fun going around the faire even if my feet got drenched in the puddles, they washed the pink off my skull beads on my shoes. I saw some great booths, so many things I wished I could have bought. I marveled at the blacksmith's tent a bit. I'm always fascinated at people crafting with fire. There was also performers there. I didn't get to see a lot cause we were getting drenched, but enough to have felt good about going.

So after the faire we headed back to North Carolina with a pit stop in Asheville since it was still early, we hadn't hung around the fair long since it was raining, so we stopped at Morgan's Comics to show off our garb and shop. By this time our McD's meal had warn off so we went to the Cracker Barrel, where I changed cause I needed to let the girls breath. While I was changing my dress Fangirl bought me a friend this cute reversible octopus! I hadn't been doing well because my night owlness at this time meant I got no sleep before I went out, and lack of sleep worked on my anxiety.

I brought the little guy to lunch with me. He apparently was craving french toast too.

We then went to Jo-Ann's for some costume supply shopping, and after a while wandered our tired way back home. 

I highly recommend if your near the Upstate area of South Carolina It's free to get in, on flat land if you have issues with hills, and it's in a beautiful location. I definitely want to add this to my yearly events.

Well that's all for this post. Next time we'll talk the Smoky Mountain Geek Expo and 20th class reunions. Have a good week, God bless, and Huzzah!