The Friday 56 (141) & Book Beginnings: Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker

The Friday 56 is a weekly meme hosted by Freda's Voice where every Friday you pick a book and turn to page 56 or 56%, and select a sentence or a few, as long as it's not a spoiler. For the full rules, visit the the page HERE

Book Beginnings is a weekly meme hosted by Rose City Reader that asks you to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you're reading.

Synopsis from Goodreads...

Sleep is one of the most important but least understood aspects of our life, wellness, and longevity. Until very recently, science had no answer to the question of why we sleep, or what good it served, or why we suffer such devastating health consequences when we don't sleep. Compared to the other basic drives in life—eating, drinking, and reproducing—the purpose of sleep remained elusive. An explosion of scientific discoveries in the last twenty years has shed new light on this fundamental aspect of our lives. Now, preeminent neuroscientist and sleep expert Matthew Walker gives us a new understanding of the vital importance of sleep and dreaming. Within the brain, sleep enriches our ability to learn, memorize, and make logical decisions. It recalibrates our emotions, restocks our immune system, fine-tunes our metabolism, and regulates our appetite. Dreaming mollifies painful memories and creates a virtual reality space in which the brain melds past and present knowledge to inspire creativity. Walker answers important questions about sleep: how do caffeine and alcohol affect sleep? What really happens during REM sleep? Why do our sleep patterns change across a lifetime? How do common sleep aids affect us and can they do long-term damage? Charting cutting-edge scientific breakthroughs, and synthesizing decades of research and clinical practice, Walker explains how we can harness sleep to improve learning, mood, and energy levels; regulate hormones; prevent cancer, Alzheimer’s, and diabetes; slow the effects of aging; increase longevity; enhance the education and lifespan of our children, and boost the efficiency, success, and productivity of our businesses. Clear-eyed, fascinating, and accessible, Why We Sleepis a crucial and illuminating book

Beginning: "Do you think you got enough sleep this past week? Can you recall the last time you woke up without an alarm clock feeling refreshed, not needing caffeine? If the answer to either of these questions is "no," you are not alone."

56: "When did life start sleeping?"

Comments: Why We Sleep is one of the books I recently checked out from the library. I'm not done reading it yet, but so far, it's a thoroughly fascinating look at some of the science behind, well, sleep. 

What are you reading this week?

ARC Review: The Proposal by Jasmine Guillory

Title: The Proposal
Series: n/a
Author: Jasmine Guillory
Source/Format: First to Read; eARC
More Details: Contemporary; Romance
Publisher/Publication Date: Berkley Books; October 30, 2018
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Synopsis from Goodreads...

The author of The Wedding Date serves up a novel about what happens when a public proposal doesn't turn into a happy ending, thanks to a woman who knows exactly how to make one on her own. When someone asks you to spend your life with him, it shouldn't come as a surprise--or happen in front of 45,000 people....

When freelance writer Nikole Paterson goes to a Dodgers game with her actor boyfriend, his man bun, and his bros, the last thing she expects is a scoreboard proposal. Saying no isn't the hard part--they've only been dating for five months, and he can't even spell her name correctly. The hard part is having to face a stadium full of disappointed fans...

At the game with his sister, Carlos Ibarra comes to Nik's rescue and rushes her away from a camera crew. He's even there for her when the video goes viral and Nik's social media blows up--in a bad way. Nik knows that in the wilds of LA, a handsome doctor like Carlos can't be looking for anything serious, so she embarks on an epic rebound with him, filled with food, fun, and fantastic sex. But when their glorified hookups start breaking the rules, one of them has to be smart enough to put on the brakes...

The Proposal by Jasmine Guillory is another cute romance with an excellent cast of diverse characters, and a heroine who finds herself on the wrong side of a story gone viral. And while a public proposal can seem like a sweet idea, The Proposal showed all the ways it could go wrong. Right off the bat—no pun intended—the inciting incident provided the perfect foundation for the rest of the story by adding some early conflict to the plot. And I liked it.

Carlos was one of my favorite characters from The Wedding Date. However, he was only in a supporting role as the best friend of Drew. Here, he’s the main guy, and Guillory fleshed-out his character by adding his backstory and showing more of his family—like his sister, mother, and cousin. I liked Carlos’s family. They were wonderful characters.

Nik was also interesting. She was sassy at times, smart, and had a number of great friends who were willing to back her up—whether that was a much needed cupcake, relationship advice, dinner, or simply getting together to talk things over.

The Proposal was more of a slow burn kind of romance. The characters spent a lot of talking and hanging out together. This was a nice touch to the story because it introduced the main characters of The Proposal to me, as the reader, and to each other on page without slowing down the story. The beginning was excellent. However, some of descriptions and dialogue seemed a little repetitive at times. That being said, I didn’t have the same problem with the second half of the story, and since this was an ARC, it may be changed in the final version of the book.

All-in-all, The Proposal was a pretty great read. And I’m looking forward to whatever Guillory writes next....

About the author...

Jasmine Guillory is a graduate of Wellesley College and Stanford Law School. She is a Bay Area native who has towering stacks of books in her living room, a cake recipe for every occasion, and upwards of 50 lipsticks....

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Disclaimer: This copy of the book was provided by First to Read for this review, thank you!

Music Monday (61): Tears for Fears

   Rules:

• Music Monday is a weekly meme hosted by Lauren Stoolfire at Always Me that asks you to share one or two songs that you've recently enjoyed. For the rules, visit the page HERE 

Breana: This week, I’m currently listening to one of my all-time favorite songs: Everybody Wants to Rule the World by Tears for Fears. I’ve listened to Lorde’s cover of this song, and while I’m a fan of it, the version I’m talking about today is my favorite….

What are you listening to this week?

Hilda....

I've been waiting for Netflix’s Hilda to come out since I first heard about it on Twitter a while ago. And, this show was delightful. I loved it. I got through most of the series in one day, because once I started watching, I couldn’t stop. Hilda is a show filled with a number of shining qualities. At times, Hilda dealt with serious topics—like the fear of moving to new places, etc.—while also maintaining a balance with lighthearted and fun moments. It was full of charm and whit with excellent dialogue, good animation, and characters I can’t help but want to see more of. Cough, clears throat…Netflix, I need a season two…cough-cough….

One of my favorite things is when fantasy elements—like magic or creatures—sits side by side with the ordinary, and I saw that a lot in this show. Hilda also had some major Gravity Falls vibes going on. And don’t get me wrong, the shows are their own separate things. What I mean by the comparison is the way the fantastical elements were integrated right into seemingly ordinary settings. With Hilda, the attitude toward those elements was a sort of general acceptance with those aspects being just another part of the world at large. And that mindset was more evident the farther into the series I got.

Speaking of the show design, I have to talk about it. It worked so well with the character design—particularly for the elves and giants, etc—as well as the background environments in each scene. And I like the fact that when the characters were small on screen, they were just miniaturized and simplified versions of themselves while maintaining the original integrity of the designs.

Another thing I enjoyed was the overall story. I liked each episode and the lessons Hilda learned through the adventures she went on and the other characters she met. While the focus was on Hilda, the relationship she had with her mother was one of the best things about the show. I liked how involved her mother was—that she knew about Hilda’s “friends” and accepted that—as well as her ability to listen to her daughter when she needed to talk/how they worked through their issues. I was also a huge fan of the secondary characters as well as the elves. They—the elves—were cute and reminded me of stick figures in clothes. I also enjoyed the occasional moments of fourth wall comedy.

Overall, Hilda was a great show. And if you haven’t watched it yet, I highly recommend that you do. And, you know, it’s October. And Hilda is a fall-ish kind of show with supernatural themes perfect to watch during this time of year....

Have you watched Hilda? If so, what are some of your favorite moments? And, if not, would you give the show a try?

Release Day Spotlight: In the Vanishers' Palace by Aliette de Bodard

Today, I'm spotlighting In the Vanishers' Palace by Aliette de Bodard. Check out the gorgeous cover and find out more about the book below....

About the book...

Title: In the Vanishers' Palace

Author: Aliette de Bodard

Series: n/a

More Details: Fantasy

Publisher/ Release Date: JABberwocky Literary Agency; October 16, 2018

Cover art by/cover design by: Kelsey Liggett; Rhiannon Rasmussen-Silverstein and Melanie Ujimori

Synopsis from Goodreads...

From the award-winning author of the Dominion of the Fallen series comes a dark retelling of Beauty and the Beast...

In a ruined, devastated world, where the earth is poisoned and beings of nightmares roam the land... A woman, betrayed, terrified, sold into indenture to pay her village's debts and struggling to survive in a spirit world. A dragon, among the last of her kind, cold and aloof but desperately trying to make a difference. When failed scholar Yên is sold to Vu Côn, one of the last dragons walking the earth, she expects to be tortured or killed for Vu Côn's amusement. But Vu Côn, it turns out, has a use for Yên: she needs a scholar to tutor her two unruly children. She takes Yên back to her home, a vast, vertiginous palace-prison where every door can lead to death. Vu Côn seems stern and unbending, but as the days pass Yên comes to see her kinder and caring side. She finds herself dangerously attracted to the dragon who is her master and jailer. In the end, Yên will have to decide where her own happiness lies—and whether it will survive the revelation of Vu Côn’s dark, unspeakable secrets....

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Early Praise....

“Another stellar offering by Bodard. Her signature intensity is on display in this tale of people (and dragons) struggling to survive in the ruins of an alien conquest. Emotionally complex relationships interweave with richly drawn and deftly nuanced world-building.” —Kate Elliott, author of the Court of Fives series

“A transformative experience. With dragons.” —Fran Wilde, Hugo and Nebula nominated author of The Bone Universe and The Gemworld series

"Gorgeously atmospheric queer fantasy (…) Like Jane Eyre if Rochester was a woman plus a dragon."—Zen Cho, author of The Terracotta Bride and Sorcerer to the Crown

About the author...

Aliette de Bodard writes speculative fiction: her short stories have garnered her two Nebula Awards, a Locus Award and two British Science Fiction Association Awards. She is the author of the Xuya continuity, set in a galactic empire inspired by Vietnamese culture (The Tea Master and the Detective, The Citadel of Weeping Pearls, gOn a Red Station, Drifting), and of the Dominion of the Fallen series, set in a turn-of-the-century Paris devastated by a magical war, which comprises The House of Shattered Wings (2015 British Science Fiction Association Award, Locus Award finalist), and its standalone sequel The House of Binding Thorns (2017 European Science Fiction Society Achievement Award, Locus Award finalist). She lives in Paris....

Photo credit:  Lou Abercrombie.

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