Give Me a Prompt 1 × The Art of Love

As I promised, a new challenge. Do it with me I dare you.

This is the thing: Once a week (it is now Wednesday so it shall be on Wednesday..) I will randomly pick a prompt from my “642 things to write about book” and write a short story. No rules. It’s easy.

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Prompt 1: “The Art of Love”

Musical inspiration was completely coincidentally given by Easy to Love by Sons of William

Love is seen as many things, I’m sure, but I don’t think many see love as an art. Yet this is what I think it is. I mean, think about it: what is art? Sure, 10 people will give you 10 different answers but when you get down to it art is a piece of someone’s soul put on display. It takes time and energy and it will never be perfect no matter how hard try, but it is completely and one hundred percent you. There’s no faking in art, no hiding. This is where love and art overlap. When love is true, and I don’t mean true as in love-at-first-sight-let’s-elope-tomorrow-I’ll-never-love-anyone-else-ever-again true, I mean a love that grows up with you, that accepts and alters not when it alteration finds, as good old Bill once said. I mean love that withstands the challenges of life. The art of love is being together for 25 years and loving each other even when you hate each other.

She’s screaming at me right now. My wife, that is, my Amanda. I think I said something wrong during the washing up, I don’t even remember, but there she is, in the middle of our living room, red-faced and flinging her arms around in anger and suddenly I’m struck with this idea of the art of love. Even now, when I would love to just stick her in the hall closet so the yelling stops, I love everything about her. Falling in love is easy, staying in love and truly loving someone through all the shit that life brings you, that’s art.

Every day you give part of yourself to this person, and they give you a part of themselves right back. It requires ultimate trust. If she ever were to leave me, I would crumble because without the pieces of herself that she gave me, there would not be enough left to keep me standing. But that will never happen, I am sure of that, because this thing we have, our life, that is our artwork.. and it is everything.

Book Review: Forbidden

She is pretty and talented – sweet sixteen and never been kissed. He is seventeen; gorgeous and on the brink of a bright future. And now they have fallen in love. But… they are brother and sister.

Seventeen-year-old Lochan and sixteen-year-old Maya have always felt more like friends than siblings. Together they have stepped in for their alcoholic, wayward mother to take care of their three younger siblings. As defacto parents to the little ones, Lochan and Maya have had to grow up fast. And the stress of their lives—and the way they understand each other so completely—has also also brought them closer than two siblings would ordinarily be. So close, in fact, that they have fallen in love. Their clandestine romance quickly blooms into deep, desperate love. They know their relationship is wrong and cannot possibly continue. And yet, they cannot stop what feels so incredibly right. As the novel careens toward an explosive and shocking finale, only one thing is certain: a love this devastating has no happy ending.

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Title: Forbidden

Author: Tabitha Suzuma

Published: May, 2010 by Definitions

Time it took me to read: 27/01 – 31/01

Rating: 3 out of 5 

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Argh finally getting around to doing this review.. I have procrastinated on this for way too long. Especially since I have another Book Review on my to do list after this one. Shoot me now, I’m a bad blogger. Anyway lets just dive in here.

Lochan and Maya come from a broken home. Including them, there are 5 kids in the house and no parents. Technically, their mom is the one who is taking care of them after their dad left but aside from one or two nights a week when she sleeps of a hangover or the occasional checks to pay the bills, she is nowhere to be seen. It falls to Lochan and Maya to keep the house running, make sure everyone is fed and has clean clothes and then also try to do their own schoolwork. Lochan is especially struggling with this. He is the oldest and takes a lot of the responsibility, acting like a substitute father for most of the time. At school, he deals with crippling social anxiety that make him unable to speak in class at all. The only positive thing in his life is Maya, his 16 year old sister who tries to help out as much as she can.

When their mom starts showing up less and less, Lochan and Maya have no choice but to lean on each other even more to prevent one or both of them to collapse and have a breakdown. However, this very dependent relationship turns into something else when Maya gives in to her desires and kisses Lochan. They start a relationship that is both dangerous for their family and highly confusing. Will they make it out?

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I picked this book up at the library after seeing it on Goodreads and doing a double take. How many books about sibling incest that isn’t rape do you know? Not many, I’m guessing. It’s a very risky subject and if not done right it could be very damaging and offensive. However, the reviews were great so I decided to give it a go.

I think that the whole time I read this book I had an eyebrow raised in skepticism. Now, it’s not bad, it’s really not, but it’s not as good as the reviews made it out to be either. I wasn’t bawling at the end. In fact, I disliked the ending. It was overly dramatic and not very realistic I think. I wasn’t bawling in a corner like other reviewers.

However, I did like how the story was build up. I was afraid that the author would have chosen for a storyline where the brother and sister are already in a relationship when we start reading but that’s not the case. We see them grow closer and discover feelings that they shouldn’t be having and because she switches points of view throughout the book, we can see it for both Maya and Lochan. We see them struggling with trying to keep it in at first, then limiting themselves and finally keeping it all hidden. It was a good development, I think, like that could happen for real.

Even though the subject is very risky, it’s not a very memorable book for me. I wasn’t that impressed and I will probably never read it again. I rate this book a 3 out of 5. Not good, but not bad either. I would recommend this to you if the subject intrigues you but if you feel squeamish around graphic descriptions of incestuous relationships, steer clear.

Happy Anniversary, Lover!

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeereeee

Its the ‘A Wordless Blogger’ blog’s birthday! Well actually it was yesterday but I didn’t have time then. To be honest it hit me a little off guard. I totally forgot that the one year anniversary was coming up. It was a great surprise though.

So right now I’m actually sitting in the exact same room as I was in last year when I first registered the name and wrote a post about me beginning a blog. It really seems like ages ago but it was only a year. Funny how time moves extremely fast and slow at the same time! So lot has changed since then. I finished school, moving to Chicago, and lost contact with the person who made me want to blog in the first place. Had you told me this would happen last year, I would have called you crazy.

But this is life I guess.

Anyway I thought it would be fun to share some stats  from the past year with you.

General statistics
15,018 views (holy shit. I mean its nothing compares to the big bloggers but still.. its a huge deal to me)
1,021 comments (again, holy shit. Thank you so much to all these people who took the time to comment!)
309 followers
250 posts (I guess I have a lot to say :p)
17 categories
And 742 tags.

Where are you
So I take great pleasure in looking at the little map that tell me where you all are from. Mostly its the big countries but sometimes I see that someone has visited my blog in Somalia or Nigeria or something and it makes me really happy.

The top 3 of countries that visit me most are:
1. United states (5,751)
2. UK (2,063)
3. The Netherlands (769)

My most popular posts

1. Book review: Looking for Alaska (1,988)
I am so glad that this review was so well received. I had a great time reading the book and I really enjoyed writing the review and really analyse what Alaska was thinking. It may be my favorite post, too.

2. “Write a 300 page essay on the best day of your life pre-16” (1,598)
I wrote this way way way in the beginning. I didn’t know what to write about so I asked Abi who gave me that assignment. I don’t know exactly why people keep reading it but its still in my ‘viewed post’ list nearly every day.

3. Movie review: Shelter/ six souls (1,043)
This was just lucky. They were re-releasing the movie Shelter as Six Souls in the cinema. I didn’t know this when they showed the movie on TV that week. I really didn’t like the movie and wrote an honest review about it. Also, why do you need to re-release a movie? That’s just nutty.

New friends
During this year of blogging I have gotten to know a lot of people. We form this little blogging community and we’be become friends. I think that that’s the best part of blogging: the people you get to know.

The people who’ve commented on my things the most and who deserve a shout out are:

1. Becky’s blog (87)
2. Kokkieh (69)
3. George Saba (51)
4. YA writer in the making (35)
5. Black ‘n Write (25)

Thank you so much for all the input and support!! I’ll put up all the links later.

So here’s to a wonderful year of blogging and here’s to the next few. Soon coming to you all the way from Chicago!

300 — Not the movie.

So a couple of days ago I said that I was two people shy of 300 followers.

Imagine my surprise that when I woke up and I suddenly had 302 followers!!

 

I mean, seriously that was me this morning. I just can’t believe that so many people deemed my blog worthy for following. It makes me feel really very happy. Believe me, it’s one hell of a motivator. Especially since I’ve had this blog less than a year. It’s like 300 people are saying ‘you know what? I like you.’ It’s a very good feeling.

And you know what? I love all of you, too. In a non-stalkery way.

 

So thank you so much to each and every one of you. I’ll be seeing you around, soon.

Now you all go off and have a cookie because you are awesome. Don’t forget that. Write it on your arm. Say it. You’re awesome. ❤