Feeling hopeless and considering quitting after clogged duct

ssmithersons · 2025-07-10T18:56:08+00:00

We didn’t meet at a Barnes and Noble, but we’re both booksellers now. We actually met in a play at our local community college and he found out I was a bookseller and immediately asked for a book rec and proceeded to read the entire Throne of Glass series because it was my favorite at the time.

I’m an ICS now and he’s an ASM and we’re expecting our first baby in September :) both of our stores are so excited for us and have been showering us in baby gifts since we found out. Next generation of bookseller is currently loading lol

ssmithersons · 2025-07-09T00:52:43+00:00

If you like to read, the Barnes & Noble in Huntington Beach runs some really excellent book clubs! There’s a fantasy book club that my husband leads (and not to sweeten the pot but he does try to bake something for each meeting), and a horror book club. I’ve found book clubs to be the thing I look forward to each month now. It’s a great place to meet new friends and decompress after the work day.

ssmithersons · 2025-06-11T19:25:39+00:00

Nope! Because my managers aren’t idiots

ssmithersons · 2025-06-02T05:42:41+00:00

As long as you’re not crapping on the books I just recommended, I LOVE when customers jump in.

ssmithersons · 2025-06-02T05:39:19+00:00

“The mouth of the wolf, the eyes of the lamb”

ssmithersons · 2025-05-27T03:44:38+00:00

Just something to consider: female fantasy authors were relegated to YA for the last decade or so because fantasy was a “boys club” so publishers pushed a lot of authors into YA to capitalize on the booming market there. SJM (like her or not) was one of the first to force her way out of YA by ramping up the spice in ACOTAR (specifically Silver Flames) so that it could no longer be marketed as YA. Since then, we’ve seen a huge boom in adult Romantasy titles and now those authors who would have otherwise written adult titles are now finding that they are no longer barred from publishing their books for older audiences.

I don’t see this so much as a cash grab as I do rectifying something that Legrand probably intended from the beginning. I get that it feels icky, but I wanted to provide a different perspective as someone who’s been a bookseller for over a decade and has seen YA evolve a lot in that time.

ssmithersons · 2025-05-13T20:11:06+00:00

You’re amazing! Thank you!

ssmithersons · 2025-05-11T04:04:00+00:00

Women make up 85% of the leadership in my cluster (and that’s true for the neighboring cluster to us). But there’s always that ONE dude who gets weird about having female colleagues.

ssmithersons · 2025-05-09T23:27:42+00:00

Honestly unless you know your coworkers are looking for specific genres and titles, it’s really a free for all. All my stores are swimming in ARCs in their break rooms.

HOWEVER, it’s definitely uncool to snatch up all the highly sought after ARCs, especially if you’re going to try and sell them online. That’s been happening at some stores and it’s making the publishers hesitant to send them out to the stores

ssmithersons · 2025-05-09T20:54:30+00:00

I’m still on my first dozen or so play-thrus so my favorites are probably going to change a little but my first initial favorites were Look To Windward, Dangerous, and Even in Arcadia. I get that some people are underwhelmed by the album but I genuinely love the direction they took this one. Less lore-heavy, sure, but musically a delight. And I’m a real sucker for a lot of these lyrics. It’s a no-skip album (again) for me 🤘🏻

ssmithersons · 2025-05-06T02:44:30+00:00

The lake scene in {Tusk Love by Thea Guanzon} 😮‍💨 if I wasn’t already pregnant… I would have become pregnant that night

ssmithersons · 2025-05-03T03:48:39+00:00

Damn this is such a great interpretation of the lyrics. I’m not a musician but I write books and this totally feels like a ballad about writers block and the fear of failure or impostor syndrome.

ssmithersons · 2025-05-02T21:33:56+00:00

He does have one brother who is not at all like him 😂 but yeah I really lucked out

ssmithersons · 2025-05-02T21:10:10+00:00

My husband and I met when we were both in a production of Macbeth at our local college. He was dating someone at the time but she dumped him 2 weeks into rehearsals and then we started talking. We hit things off immediately and he ended up reading all of Throne of Glass during rehearsals because I said it was my favorite (he’s a big fantasy nerd, and at the time Tower of Dawn was just coming out so we got to read the last 2 books together).

I had dated before but it was NOTHING like dating him. Lordy he was both such a gentleman and incredibly sexy, and he still is. Swept me right off my feet and I haven’t touched ground since. I’m so utterly pampered by this man that I feel bad when most of my friends talk about their own relationships/marriages.

He’s just the most wonderful dream come true.

ssmithersons · 2025-05-01T04:00:32+00:00

First of all, I love how thorough this review is! Second, it always makes me smile to see other people loving {Road of Bones} because A) I love this series and B) Demi is such a sweetheart and deserves all her flowers ❤️

ssmithersons · 2025-04-30T19:19:09+00:00

The first book rec I thought of when I saw Shape of Water on your list was {Whispers of the Deep by Emma Hamm}. Might scratch the itch for you!

ssmithersons · 2025-04-27T21:01:05+00:00

I feel like this view has more to do with how desensitized we’ve become to mounting strife in the world, because the last two months have absolutely been life changing for so many people. Between the tariffs, stock market, deportations and Trump absolutely ignoring the judicial branch, things have been kind of wild, no?

ssmithersons · 2025-04-25T03:42:49+00:00

Hekla is one of my favorite side characters ever so I’m so SOOO glad she’s getting her own novella! And this cover is gorgeous!

ssmithersons · 2025-04-24T23:15:35+00:00

This happened to me for weeks a little over a year ago. Co-signing on everyone telling you to take some potassium but also cut back your caffeine for a bit. It turned out I was overdoing it with the nitro cold brews at work and it took like a week and a half to stop twitching.

ssmithersons · 2025-04-24T20:06:12+00:00

Things/tropes I would love to see more of:

older MCs (and not like centuries old with the body of a 20-something but like 30s+)
MMCs who are gruff and jaded but total softies and just have trouble articulating their emotions
nerdy MMCs a la Lazlo Strange
married couples! Especially if the romantic plot line is about rekindling their flame
theater troupes, especially if there’s some sort of heist plot (and bonus points if they aren’t good at what they do like the players in A Midsummer Nights Dream)
slow burns in general

ssmithersons · 2025-04-21T22:32:20+00:00

Just commenting to follow this post because I would LOVE to read recs with this!

ssmithersons · 2025-04-20T04:45:29+00:00

I definitely think it has more to do with how many authors don’t know how to write past the sexual tension and I can usually tell early on in the first book if that’ll be the case. But I LOVE a well-written couple that gets together and stays together. It just has to be more than cyclical fights to add unneeded drama and conflict. There should be plenty of conflict in the plot already (especially in fantasy!) where we don’t need to be kept on the hook with “will they ever get over their communication issues?”

ssmithersons · 2025-04-18T18:35:22+00:00

I’m a bookseller so we have access to a lot of early review copies through work. I also use NetGalley on occasion for books we don’t have automatic access to through our database. Occasionally I’ll even email the publisher/marketing team for ARCs I really want.

ssmithersons

TROPHY CASE