Books I've Read: I Hope You Get this Message

I picked this one up at the library because it sounded interesting.  I always like a ook with a ticking clock, and what ticks louder than a potential alien planet promising to destroy the world?  But to be honest, that part of the story is fairly minor in this book.  It's very much in the background and influences the eahviour of the charaters and those around them, but it isn't delved into in any great detail.

The three main characters are very different.  Cate is super responsible and together because she's grown up with a single mother who suffers from mental illness.  She knows very little about her father, but when, in a manic episode, her mother tells her to take a letter to him, Cate is determined to do just that.

Jesse also lives with a single mother who works her ass off to keep herself and her son afloat.  With money so tight, Jesse has taken to stealing so they have enough to eat and does whatever he can to bring in any extra cash.  So, when news of the alien invasion hits, he figures out a way to use the ensuing gpanic to his advantage.

And finally, Adeem is a crack computer programmer whose life was shattered when his sister came out and then ran away when their parents wouldn't accept it.  He can't forgive her for this and with the clock counting down to the end of the world, he's desperate to see her again.

Over the course of this book and these three distinct missions, the three characters collide and discover truths about themselves and those they love they would never have expected.

I aways find in books with multiple protagonists, there's one I like more than the others and in this book it was Jesse.  I found Cate annoying in many ways, especially in the way she treated her best friend.  And while I didnt have any real problem with Adeem, I didn't have an enormous amount of love for him either.

But the book isn't bad.  I liked that in a story about an alien threat, the place everyone was trying to get to was Roswell.  And that Roswell ended up having the answers they were looking for, even if they didn;t have anything to do with aliens.

So, while this book didn't really rock my world, it was a decent enough read.

But don;t just listen to me.  Here's the blurb:


Seven days. Seven days. The Earth might end in seven days.

When news stations start reporting that Earth has been contacted by a planet named Alma, the world is abuzz with rumors that the alien entity is giving mankind only few days to live before they hit the kill switch on civilization.

For high school truant Jesse Hewitt, though, nothing has ever felt permanent. Not the guys he hooks up with. Not the jobs his underpaid mom works so hard to hold down. Life has dealt him one bad blow after another — so what does it matter if it all ends now? Cate Collins, on the other hand, is desperate to use this time to find the father she’s never met, the man she grew up hearing wild stories about, most of which she didn’t believe. And then there’s Adeem Khan. While coding and computer programming have always come easily to him, forgiveness doesn’t. He can’t seem to forgive his sister for leaving, even though it’s his last chance.

With only seven days to face their truths and right their wrongs, Jesse, Cate, and Adeem’s paths collide even as their worlds are pulled apart.

Weekly Goals 7-9-26

 I'm still flat out, crazy busy at work, so this is going to be short and sweet.  I don't think I'll be coming up for air until the end of September, so I'll think more about writing and publishing and all those things then.

Until then, I'm in customer servicce mode.

what are your goals this week?

Celebrate the Small Things 4-9-26

 

 It's the end of the week so it's time to celebrate the small things!

So what am I celebrating this week?

It's the weekend!

Not that I'm going to get too much of one this week.  I'm so far behind on everything at work, I'm going to have to go in at least one day to catch up a bit or next week will probably be the end of me.

So, I'm not feeling like I have too much to celebrate this week.  I'm exhausted and have about three more weeks of insanity to look forward to before I can get even a few days off.

What are you celebrating this week?

IWSG - September 2026

 It's the first Wednesday in September, so it's time for the Insecure Writers Support Group!

Our wonderful co-hosts this month are: 

Kate Larkindale (that's me!), SE White, JS Pally, Olga Godim and Natalie Aguirre!

This month's question is an interesting one: 

Do you have a favorite character archetype you tend to gravitate toward in your writing?

I'm not sure any of my characters are archetypes, but I certainly find I have characters who fit into certain roles in a number of my books.  I often write from the POV of characters who are outcasts, whether they have been made that by other people, or if they have put themselves in that box.  I also seem to write a lot of characters who are reluctant or forced to be caregivers.

The first I can kind of understand.  I write primarily YA, so my characters are young people and when I was young, I felt constantly like an outcast.  My family moved a lot when I was a kid, so every couple of years I found myself in a new school, in a new country, with a bunch of new kids I knew nothing about.  Learning all those new sets of rules to try and fit in grew exhausting after a while, so instead of bending myself to their ways, I learned to embrace my difference and even to highlight it.

The reluctant caregiver I often write isn't so easily explained.  I actually have no idea where that comes from, but you'll certainly find them in my books whether it's as blatantly obvious as it is in Standing Too Close or Chasing the Taillights, or more subtle.

Another character type I seem to be drawn to is the confident best friend.  A lot of my MCs are kind of shy or socially awkward, but almost all of them have a bestie who's the complete opposite - the life of the party, the one who will stand up and tell the world what's what, who will grab the world by the horns and force it to bend to their will.  I think this is the person I've always wanted to be, but because of the whole moving thing and wanting fit in, I've always been far too much of a people-pleaser to be.

In the long run, I think every character has pieces of me in them and because of that, it's hard to pick a favourite.  

Do you have a character archetype you keep coming back to?  Is it something you enjoy writing, or do you just find yourself doing it without really thinking about it?

Weekly Goals 31-8-26

 It's goig to be another busy week at work this week.  The 2027 Season launches on Friday and we have concerts on both Friday and Saturday nights.  I stll have a few little things I need to do to tidy up the new system before the new Season goes on sale and the new website that was supposed to go live last week needs to be checked and tested before it can go live ahead of the launch.

So, once again, I'm not going to be setting myself much in the way of goals outside of that.  I figure I'll be able to start focusing on other thngs again around the end of September.

What are your goals this week?

Celebrate the Small Things 28-8-28

 It's the end of the week so it's time to celebrate the small things!

So what am I celebrating this week?

It's the weekend!

And I actually get one this week for the first time in three weeks.  Very much needed!

We went live with our new system this week and it is already making my life about 1000% easier.  A task that used to take me a full mornning to do before each concert took me less than an hour to do yesterday.  It's going to be a massive timesaver. I still have a few busy weeks ahead as we launch the 2027 Season, but the most stressful part of all of it is over now.  

I'm planning to take a week off in early October to try and re-set a bit and get started on a new book.  What that book might be is unclear to me at the moment, but I have a few ideas I'm tossing around.  I'm sure one of them will come to the surface once I have the time to sit down and actually write.

What are you celebrating this week?

Books I've Read; A Lite too Bright

This was an interesting book, but ultimately, not quite as interesting as I thought it was going to be from reading the back-cover copy.

It opens with a dream - always a risky move - that you're not 100% is a dream or not until well into the book.  It's important, but again, that's not something that becomes clear unitl much further into the book. What is clear right from the start is that Arthur Louis Pullman the Third is one messed up dude.  He's lost his girlfriend, broken his hand, lost his scholarship and has very little hope about anything as he and his father make their way to his aunt anf uncle's house.  He's going to stay there a while, to get away from the place all his problems began.

But when he arrives at his aunt and uncle's, Arthur finds a journal written by his grandfather who died five years ago after going missing for a week.  Deep in the throes of dementia, no one has ever managed to figure out why the first Arthur Louis Pullman ended up dead in Ohio, although there has been considerable speculation due to his status as an author with the status of a Salinger or Kerouac.  The journal is confused, but offers the younger Arthur a clue in a sentence about a train route.

Determined to solve the mystery that's been hanging over his family for years, Arthur jumps on the train and begins an eye-opening journey across America in search of answers.  Each stop offers new clues and insights into his grandfather and his legacy the young Arthur had no idea about.   Things become complicated when he builds a fragile alliance with a British girl with secrets of her own, and even more so when he runs into a group of fantatical fans of his grandfather's only booke.

As he grows closer to discovering the truth, Arthur has to face the fact he knew very little about his grandfather and the life he'd lived, but more importantly, he has to face his own demons and acknowledge the parts of himself that caused his personal downfall.

There were parts of this book I enjoyed very much.  I loved the idea of this cross-country journey fuelled by fragments of demtia-driven poetry.  How little bothe Arthur and his father actually knew about the famous author living under their roof was both sad and painfully real.  The final reveal of what it it was that had the oldest Arthur Louis Pullman running was also heartbreaking.

Yet I never really felt connected to young Arthur as he went on this journey.  I never cared that much about what happened to him or if he found the answers he was searching for.  I never felt like he had any real connection to his grandfather, that the years he lived with the family were ones filled with frustration at an old man with a fading mind.  So, it didn't feel wholly realistic to me that Arthur would, in the depths of his own personal despair, hare off on this journey to find the truth about him.  If he'd been close with grandpa and had never really managed to come to terms with the fact he died, the trip would make much more sense.

But I did enjoy it.  I think I would have enjoyed it more if I'd connected more with the main character, but I guess when he's lying to himself and hiding things from his own mind, the reader can't truly be in his head.

But don't just listen to me.  Here's the blurb:

For fans of literary classics such as The Catcher in the Rye and The Perks of Being a Wallflower comes a stirring new thought-provoking novel from debut author Sam Miller about a loss shrouded in mystery with twists and turns down every railway.

Arthur Louis Pullman the Third is on the verge of a breakdown. He’s been stripped of his college scholarship, is losing his grip on reality, and has been sent away to live with his aunt and uncle.

It’s there that Arthur discovers a journal written by his grandfather, the first Arthur Louis Pullman, an iconic Salinger-esque author who went missing the last week of his life and died hundreds of miles away from their family home. What happened in that week—and how much his actions were influenced by his Alzheimer’s—remains a mystery.

But now Arthur has his grandfather’s journal—and a final sentence containing a train route and a destination.

So Arthur embarks on a cross-country train ride to relive his grandfather’s last week, guided only by the clues left behind in the dementia-fueled journal. As Arthur gets closer to uncovering a sad and terrible truth, his journey is complicated by a shaky alliance with a girl who has secrets of her own and by escalating run-ins with a dangerous Pullman fan base.

Arthur’s not the only one chasing a legacy—and some feel there is no cost too high for the truth.