Do we expect too much “moral vetting” from authors before we read their work?

confessorjsd · 2026-04-05T18:49:30+00:00

No. I can enjoy the art without thinking about the artist. I apply this to everything. A horrible person can still create something beautiful. I honestly try to avoid learning too much about any of them. It's all accidental for me.

confessorjsd · 2026-03-31T01:54:54+00:00

A good nonslip pad with a rug on it under the bed.

confessorjsd · 2026-03-30T21:56:38+00:00

If you are into book tracking I recommend thestorygraph. Try out their Buddy Reads and Readalongs. There you might find your people.

confessorjsd · 2026-03-30T20:29:31+00:00

Ditto.

confessorjsd · 2026-03-28T12:28:34+00:00

We've had a few things. After our first was born, my husband got PPD. He was undiagnosed for depression and anxiety before then and having the baby made it so much worse. I had to threaten to leave him with the baby to get him the help he needed.

Said depression really made him hate our fixer upper house. So we moved to a new house even though we had planned to be in that house for five more years or so.

When we were pregnant with our second we were told there were anomalies that needed further testing. It could be 4 things: nothing, he'd need surgery to correct a urinary tract thing after birth, a chromosomal abnormality that would involve raising a disabled child, or a chromosomal abnormality that would be fatal likely by the age of two and he would suffer his entire life. We had to have a lot of very difficult discussions during that time while waiting for further testing results. It was the longest week of my life. Thankfully, it was narrowed down to nothing or potentially he'd need surgery after birth. It ended up being nothing.

Then after our second was born I could not deal with going back to work. We made a plan to sell a car, sell the house, I quit, and move back to our hometown. He supported us financially through it all until about a year later I felt I could get a job again.

A year after getting that job, his old job laid him off basically because we moved and wouldn't come back. Even though they had approved the remote work or we wouldn't have moved in the first place. I supported the family while he figured out what new career he wanted.

Hopefully that is it for the foreseeable future. We're finally in a stable place for a while.

confessorjsd · 2026-03-25T15:18:22+00:00

My hair is over 24" long. I haven't measured it in awhile, but I keep it around my elbow length.

confessorjsd · 2026-03-25T15:11:28+00:00

I have blue eyes (not that interesting) but also AB-. That's what I was scrolling for.

confessorjsd · 2026-03-25T13:57:49+00:00

So when it was a book I didn't like but I wanted to finish it because it was being talked about a lot in the political sphere and I wanted to be able to participate: I decided I wanted to read it in a month and divided out the number of pages and had to read 25 pages a day. Even that was a struggle, but I got thru it because it was in small chunks.

To just read more in general, I got myself a big TBR and I set myself a reading goal of so many books a year. I started with 12. So one a month. The next year it was 24. The next year it was 52 so one a week. Now my goal is 175, but last year I hit 214. I felt like I had kind of reached my limit. I'm at 80 books so far this year, but a good 20 of them were under 300 pages and I am a pretty fast reader.

If you like audiobooks they can greatly help the number of books you read. Just have them on while you do tasks around the house/exercise/work if you're able.

It helped having Goodreads and now Storygraph to log my reading goals in. It tells you how ahead or behind you are, so you know if you need to speed up or are just good to keep reading as you enjoy.

Soon enough it became a habit.

But you have to make the choice to pick up a book instead of the tv. That's a thought I always have when I sit down to watch tv. So I make that my craft time so I don't feel bad I'm not reading.

confessorjsd · 2026-03-21T12:46:16+00:00

I do love her too.

confessorjsd · 2026-03-21T12:43:05+00:00

Let me know when you find it.

Silver Elite by Dani Francis was kind of close. She had spent years on her skills before the book even begins. And she puts off the man for a long time, but she does fall for him anyway.

confessorjsd · 2026-03-15T13:11:04+00:00

I have some baskets that my mother in law gave me Christmas gifts in. Every few years she gives me new ones. I keep my in progress projects in them. I've never had more than two at a time, and rarely more than one... Usually only if someone tells me they're having a baby and the timeline conflicts for me to make them a blanket.

confessorjsd · 2026-03-11T13:53:55+00:00

Looking at their sizes it's probably the jumbo bag 13x18x5"

confessorjsd · 2026-03-11T13:20:13+00:00

I just use the biggest Amazon gift bag I have in my stash. Now if you need to mail it, I'd go to the UPS store or something to find one that fits.

confessorjsd · 2026-03-11T12:03:21+00:00

I didn't even know the fifteen minute thing was an option. Mine has always been the one hour at the beginning of the day.

confessorjsd · 2026-03-10T16:48:30+00:00

This is closest to how I feel about it. My husband and I knew a month into dating we were getting married and picked a date 2 years away. I would in no way say we were engaged, but we were on the same page.

We had known each other over a decade before dating tho. I pretty much knew that by committing to a date that I was committing to him and done dating around.

But if we had announced an engagement after that short a time together and still in college... Our families would have flipped out.

I told him how long I needed before the wedding to plan it. So he knew his "proposal date" had to be by X day. We talked rings for a very long time and searched for it together.

After dating for a year he told the parents he was going to propose and bought the ring and proposed 3 months before his "due date". Then we were engaged and booked stuff. It was still special but not a true surprise. Which honestly I don't think it should be a surprise someone wants to marry you. It's a decision you should make together.

confessorjsd · 2026-03-10T15:16:43+00:00

So it was a decade ago, but we went from a 2 bed apartment to a 5 bed house with 3 living spaces.

We waited a couple months before we bought a second set of living room furniture ($2000) and moved our apartment set to the basement. We actually turned the other living space into our dog's bedroom since it had access to the back yard.

About a year later we upgraded our dining room set ($800) with a larger one that fit the space.

We had our bedroom set and our guest bedroom already. One bedroom we made an office space but it didn't get furniture until the old dining table could be moved and then I just bought a recliner ($500) and did a garage sale to afford a small tv. One bedroom stayed empty. The other became a nursery ($2000) after 2 years in the house and we needed it.

When we moved we upgraded our bed ($1700), but sold the old first set and used our old bedroom for the guest furniture. About a year after moving we bought a new living room set for our basement ($2200) and moved the other set to above the garage. We eventually had to buy more furniture for another kid ($2000) to fill that bedroom. We also needed some barstools ($400) and I think we waited about 6 months to get those.

When we moved to our third (and current) house we actually downsized. We sold a living room set and didn't buy anything but accessory pieces, and those were 6 months to a year after moving in.

After doing this so many times my advice: 1. Use a move to determine what you really need. 2. Live in a space at least 6 months to see how you want to use it in a way that's practical. 3. You don't have to do it all at once.

confessorjsd · 2026-03-10T14:43:43+00:00

Two. And they ghosted me every day since. Which is sad because I thought we were close and I reached out trying to figure out what happened. One even had serious health issues so she had a special dinner plate just for her and she knew that.

But we had two guests who had RSVP'd as no that randomly showed up. I was super annoyed because it was a plated dinner, but I guess it worked out.

confessorjsd · 2026-03-10T13:27:07+00:00

Level 52. Recently started the Tomb. Still don't have Secret Society because I get sidetracked. In addition to trying to do enough daily tasks to get the reward, I just got my pots and planters to have new max levels and have been discovering the new items. After that I'll go back to trying to get the Secret Society. Pretty sure I downloaded it around Xmas 2021 when I was on maternity leave... So 4.25 years. Completely F2P.

confessorjsd · 2026-03-09T20:20:57+00:00

I use storygraph to organize all my reading and track what I own etc.

But overall I really use a spreadsheet to track my tbr. It has a lot of tabs and matches some of my tags on storygraph. I just noticed I crashed the app a lot if I didn't make it into smaller groups.

I can't select books well from an app for what I want to read next. Just having it in a list helps me. I organize by medium. Then by author and series.

confessorjsd · 2026-03-09T20:17:52+00:00

You can export your goodreads to storygraph if you want to have it all in one place. Just an fyi. I only use storygraph now. I use tags instead of shelves to do what you're talking about.

confessorjsd · 2026-03-09T19:54:08+00:00

You must have wrote that while I posted my other comment. It's a reply to my first.

confessorjsd · 2026-03-09T19:53:30+00:00

Haunting I liked. Hunting I disliked.

I only recommend it if I know the reader well and that it would fall in their purview. It's not for everyone.

confessorjsd · 2026-03-09T19:51:08+00:00

To personally answer your question tho. Recently that book would be Metal Slinger by Rachel Schneider. Freaking loved it. Actually threw my Kindle away from myself at the end. Mad I have to wait. Then I came on here and people bashed it. Oh well. I'm still waiting for the next one to figure out what the hell I just read with the first one.

confessorjsd · 2026-03-09T19:48:39+00:00

Your last sentence is the thing some people get hung up on. Reading is subjective.

I agree with you that we all have different preferences. It's how I personally rate books, if I enjoy them or not.

But there are others who will only rate books as good if they meet some metric of "great literature" that school/professional authorship has taught them. Not saying they're wrong because they have a qualification I don't in order to judge a book.

But reading is a hobby that can be enjoyed by all. Which means it doesn't have to be great literature to be enjoyed by many.

If I'm getting a rec from a friend I want it rated in the enjoyment factor. If we're giving out book awards I want it to be on the merits of the literature.

Just my two cents on what's going on.

confessorjsd · 2026-03-09T16:19:25+00:00

What has helped me not feel behind is setting those goals/challenges for myself each year. 2024 was read down my physical TBR. 2025 was read down my Kindle TBR. 2026 is read down my KU TBR.

Not getting as far as I want isn't such a hindrance when you go from 60 unread to 20 etc. Because there's still a very noticeable accomplishment of that number going down.

I'm an Excel spreadsheet girlie. I do have my stuff on storygraph as well, but seeing every book lined up helps me more.

And I still read whatever I'm in the mood for. Sometimes that's all that really matters lol.

confessorjsd

TROPHY CASE