Dreamroll

We decided to go for dinner tonight to avoid the worst of the heat and it was very pleasant by the time we got there. Not too crowded, either.

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Recently Finished
Fog
Classic middle grade novel about a girl who lives on an island and when she starts junior high, she starts boarding on the mainland with some other island kids. She's been told it's difficult to adjust, but that doesn't prepare her for the mind games and possibily supernatural powers of the principal and his wife. I didn't read this as a kid, but I must have seen someone talking about it online and decided to check it out (it's been on my to-read list for a while so I don't remember where I heard about it). However, I don't feel like it really holds up to a first-time read as an adult, and I won't be continuing the series.

The School for Good Mothers
Oof. This is a tough book to rate, because it's very well-written and interesting, but I did not enjoy it at all. Not only does it become pretty obvious early on that there's no hope of any sort of happy ending, but there are many excruciating moments when you just want to scream at the MC for making bad decisions, even while having sympathy and seeing how she's been driven to that point.

The story takes place in the near future, where her state has just introduced a new program for people who've had their kids taken away by CPS. They are sent to a "school" (basically a prison) for a full year to supposedly learn to become good parents, but they are set up at every turn for failure and constantly subjected to psychological torture in the name of training them. It's a hard read, and I don't know that I'd actually recommend it, but it's good.

The Price of Honey
Short story about a group of women, the current wife and ex-wives of a tech billionaire, meeting up at his funeral. This was a freebie through Amazon First Reads, which is why I grabbed it. I liked the twist.

Idyll Threats
First in a murder mystery series about a closeted gay cop (though he's not closeted by the end of the first book) in a small town in the late '90s. I liked it all right but I'm not sure I'll read the rest.

This Is Not the Jess Show
The Truman Show for the YA crowd. I did watch The Truman Show back in the day but remember nothing about it except the premise. I really liked this take on it, and the ending was great.

Mapmakers and the Enchanted Mountain and Mapmakers and the Flickering Fortress
Books two and three in the Mapmakers trilogy of YA graphic novels. I read the first one a while back and didn't remember too much of it, but was able to catch up without having to reread it. This is a cute series.

Huda F Are You?
YA graphic memoir about the author's high school years after moving from a city where there were very few Muslims, to Dearborn, Michigan, where many of her classmates were both Muslim and hijabi. I've read a couple of the author's non-YA graphic novels about being Muslim and liked this one a lot more. There are others in the series and I'll probably read them as well.

1. Neither Carla nor I had realized it was the season, but we stopped in at McDonald's for lunch today and saw posters for Shamrock Shakes, so we each got one. I am fine with them not being a year-round thing, but they are surprisingly tasty and I do like getting at least one when they're on the menu.

2. We're having a couple days of warm weather after a few cooler days, and there's supposed to be more warm weather next week, but for once the weekend is actually supposed to be cool. It'll still be warmer in Anaheim than at home, so we're thinking of going to Disneyland for dinner on Saturday rather than breakfast/lunch, but hopefully it won't be too bad. And it wasn't as hot today as it was a few days ago, at least. (Really making me wish the sun was still going down earlier, though! Then we'd have cooler evenings.)

3. Jasper was being a cutie on my desk earlier.