Book Review: Catholic Dictionary by John A. Hardon, S.J.

ISBN: 9780307886347
Published: June 2013
Publisher: Image
Synopsis from publisher:

John Hardon's comprehensive, one-volume work of reference defining the key
terms of Catholicism; updated to include the most recent developments in the
Catholic Church.
Clear, concise, and faithful, with over 2,000 entries, Catholic Dictionary is the essential Catholic lexicon in the areas of faith, worship, morals, history, theology, and spirituality. Now revised to include the statements of Pope Benedict XVI and Pope John Paul II, new movements and devotions, and other recent developments within Catholicism, this edition brings the legacy of Father Hardon into the contemporary era. A worthy companion to Catechism of the Catholic Church and Scott Hahn's Catholic Bible Dictionary, this book is an essential resource for the Catholic reader.

Review:

I think this book is a wonderful book for any Catholic to have around.  It explains what many Catholicism-related terms mean, and many of the definitions are in depth.  Some definitions are only a few sentences while others are multiple paragraphs, depending on how much detail is needed to explain the term.

I didn't sit down and read the book from front to back, although I was tempted to.  I did, however, spend a lot of time flipping through and reading various definitions, and I'm really impressed with this book.  I will definitely enjoy having it around, so that I can use it to look up any terms when I need to.  It's true that the Internet can often be used for those cases nowadays, and it's what I would have done before.  However, I like the idea of having this book, as sometimes it can get confusing when you look up certain terms on the Internet.  This way I can look in this book and get at least an idea of something.  Then, if I want to look at it more in depth, I can Google it.

I'm not entirely sure what I was expecting from this book, but it definitely trumped my expectations.  Even though many of the entries are relatively short, I would almost think of it as an encyclopedia than a dictionary, as most of the entries are longer than your typical dictionary entry.  They're all very good explanations for the various terms that you may hear when reading about or discussing Catholicism.

I think this is a great resource for any Catholic to have around, especially if you read a lot of Catholic literature and may come across terms you don't know.

I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.

Top Ten Favorite Book Characters

This topic came from Top Ten Tuesday hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.  I'm going through and doing all of the old themes whenever I get a chance here and on my Youtube channel.

1. Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling.  This won't be a surprise to anyone who knows me.  I've loved Hermione since I saw the first movie as a little kid.  I related to her so much, and I think she was the main reason that I was never ashamed to be an obsessive reader as a kid.  A ton of my days as a little kid were spent reading books, and she was the first person/character that I discovered who loved reading as much as I did.  She basically became my role model.

2. Peeta Mellark from the Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins.  I've said before that if I could marry a fictional character, it would be Peeta.  I pretty much fell in love with him in these books.  I think it's incredible how good of a person he remains even in the situation he's in.  It really sets him apart from a lot of the other characters, as Katniss comments on frequently.  Even after the events in Mockingjay (which I won't mention specifically since it's a spoiler), he still tries really hard to do the right thing and become better.

3. Ron Weasley from the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling.  It took me a bit longer to warm up to Ron than Hermione.  I think a lot of that is because I saw the first movie before reading the book, and I kind of pictured him as the comic relief that they make him in the movies.  It wasn't until I was older that I could fully appreciate him.  I think it helped that whenever we played pretend at recess with Harry Potter characters, I was always Ron because no one else wanted to be, and once I because a huge Romione shipper, I began to love him even more.

4. Remus Lupin from the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling.  I should just clarify right now that the majority of these characters will be from Harry Potter.  Remus was always my favorite Marauder.  I think because I could relate to him the most out of all the Marauder Era characters.  James, Sirius, and Lily were too impressive for me to relate to, and I didn't want to relate to Peter Pettigrew or Snape.  Since I read a lot of Marauder Era fanfiction, Remus became one of my favorite characters.

5. Johanna Mason from the Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins.  This probably seems like a weird choice considering my past picks and how I liked them because I could relate to them.  Johanna and I are nothing alike, but I really love her character.  I love her sense of humor and how tough she acts, but you also see her weaknesses over the course of the series.

6. Leah Clearwater from the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer.  Yeah, I wasn't expecting any Twilight characters on this list, but then I chose Johanna and I instantly remembered how similar Leah and Johanna seem to me.  Leah has been my favorite Twilight character for a long time, and the majority of fanfiction I read focuses on her.  Unlike the characters that I admired because I related to them in some way, I admired Leah because I wanted to be as tough as her.  Plus, she's the only female wolf, and that's pretty awesome.

7. Luna Lovegood from the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling.  I feel like I shouldn't even have to explain this.  How can you read the Harry Potter series and not love Luna?  It's incredible how easy she can be herself and not care what others think, even though what she thinks is so utterly different from everyone else.

8. Harry Potter from the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling.  Like Ron, it actually took a long time for Harry to become one of my favorite Harry Potter characters.  He was the hero of the series, but for some reason he wasn't particularly remarkable in my mind.  Then, in the past few years, I've come to completely appreciate him.  I always loved him because he was Harry Potter, but for some reason that's become stronger in recent years.  I think I just started thinking about everything that he had to go through in a way I hadn't bothered to when I was younger.

9. Seth Clearwater from the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer.  I put Leah on this list, so I figured I might as well...  I don't think I've ever heard of someone disliking Seth.  Even my best friend freshmen year of high school used to go on and on about how much she hated all of the wolves (she was ardently Team Edward) except Seth.  Seth was the only one that she thought was tolerable.  I really love his character and how he's the only wolf to accept the Cullens.  He's also almost always upbeat and happy.

10. Augustus Water from The Fault in Our Stars by John Green.  If you've read The Fault in Our Stars then I think this makes immediate sense.  Augustus is amazing, and I think everyone who read the book kind of falls in love with him.  I don't want to say any more though because it could get spoilery.

This list is basically dominated by Harry Potter and a bit of Hunger Games and Twilight (which I was honestly not expecting).  I guess when you read fanfiction about characters you get even more attached to them though.  When I think of fictional characters, the ones that I read about regularly are the first that come to mind.

Finishing a First Draft and Starting a One-shot

I didn't get much writing done yesterday as I spent a good deal of the day in Owensboro with my sister Regina.  We each had hair appointments, and the hairstylist that was supposed to do mine never showed up.  That meant they only had one hairstylist attempting to do the appointments for two of them.  Since I was getting my hair dyed again in addition to having to wait longer, we were there quite a while.  I'm glad my hair has red in it again though.  The red from before had more or less faded completely and left my hair just a brown color.  (Plus, my roots were getting bad, but that's not as exciting as having red in my hair again.)

After our hair appointments, Regina had to shop for school supplies, and since she's an incredibly picky person that took a bit of time.  She wasn't happy with most of the supplies in the store for various reasons, and I don't think she got even the majority of things she needs.  After all of that, she had to go get her eyebrows done, but luckily that was incredibly quick.

That all took up the entire afternoon, and by the time we got home I wasn't in the mood to write at all.  Luckily, I had gotten some done early that morning, so the day wasn't a complete waste in that respect.  I don't know what I'm going to do when I have to go back to school and don't have as much time to write.  It's reached the point where I spend a good deal of every day writing.

I actually managed to finish the rough draft of the story I've been working on today, but there is still so much work I need to do on that.  It's more the length of a novella at the moment than a novel, but I definitely plan on that changing.  I need to expand on things a lot.  It's a planned start to a series, and I'm still kind of figuring out how to pace out the story over the different novels/novellas/what-it-ends-up-being.  I think I have a good start though.  I mean, it's complete crap really, but I'm happy with the potential it has as long as I keep ironing everything out.

However, I think I'm going to take a break on that story for a bit and write a one-shot fanfiction I've been planning for a while.  I'm hoping it won't take too long since it's a one-shot, especially with the amount of writing I've been doing recently.

Twisted Episode 8 Review

First of all, I'm really happy that Jo realized that Danny doesn't have feelings for her, but I was not at all happy that she immediately decided to go on a date with Tyler.  I understand her motivation, but there were just so many things that I hated about that.  I never liked Tyler, and that dislike was finally fully justified in this episode.  I also feel so sorry for Rico.  I can't believe how oblivious Jo is to his feelings for her.

While I expected that something was up with Tyler, I was not expecting him to be making a documentary.  I really hate his character so much, and it's not even just the horrible things he does in this episode.  His entire personality annoys me.  I have a feeling we'll be seeing a lot more of him in the future episodes though, and I am not looking forward to that.

When Danny and Lacey were kissing in Danny's living room and it started panning out, I immediately knew that someone was going to see them.  It will be interesting to see how that plays out.  I wonder if they'll be blackmailed or if their secret will just be revealed to the school.

I definitely wasn't expecting Karen to admit to Regina's murder.  I know there are some people that believe she really did kill Regina, but I'm not so convinced.  It's possible, but I honestly think she's just doing it to protect Danny.  She really hasn't done anything to make me think she's guilty.

After the ending to this episode, I'm really looking forward to next week's episode to see what happens.

Book Review: A Pretty Age by Barbara Mueller

ISBN: 1449779557
Published: January 7th, 2013
Publisher: Westbow Press
Synopsis from publisher:

In 1910, a missionary visitor arrives at Sophiny Mumm’s convent boarding school in Concord, Kansas. Sophiny is smitten. Her best friend Antoinette Dominguez is not—and begins a series of strange behaviors breaking all the rules. In an ensuing investigation of puzzling enigmas, Sophiny has to use all the resources of emerging women’s rights, family relationships, social networks, the new technologies (telephone, photography, and transportation), and patron saints. A Pretty Age exposes the violence still underlying the Midwest’s supposed civilizing forces at the turn of the century (1910) through the emergence of two convent boarding school students into a world where weapons may have changed but the danger remains.

Review:

It's a bit hard to describe A Pretty Age for me.  I guess describing it as a mystery book is the best way.  Sophiny's best friend Antoinette disappears from the convent school that they both attend.  Antoinette has been telling Sophiny that she plans to elope, and while this puzzles her, Sophiny isn't very worried about her friend at first.  Then, as time goes on and Antoinette isn't found or heard from, Sophiny begins to get worried and starts looking into things.  Things get a bit dark as she starts uncovering what has happened to Antoinette.

I wasn't too fond of this book.  I almost put it down about halfway through, but just as I was about to give up, the plot picked up enough that I kept going.  Still, I skimmed large portions of the book because I wasn't a fan of the writing style.  That's what kept me from getting into it.  The entire book seemed to drag on, and I felt like what could have been told in a few sentences was instead elaborated into several paragraphs.  It made it difficult for me to read and enjoy the book.

It really is a shame because the plot itself was intriguing, and I feel like I would have enjoyed it a lot more if the writing style had been different.  However, there were some aspects of the story I liked.  It had a very interesting setting.  I don't know if I've read any books set around 1910, and if I have, they certainly didn't take place in Kansas.  It was also really unique that a large part of the story takes place at a convent school, which is a setting that I've definitely never read about.  There was also quite a lot of talk about feminism and what was happening in the feminist movement in 1910 that I really enjoyed.  There are many strong female characters in this book, and that definitely helped me get through the book easier.

While the writing style made it difficult for me at times, certain aspects of the story were enough to make me still enjoy A Pretty Age okay.  I think there are definitely people out there who would enjoy it, but it's not for everyone.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze.com® <http://BookSneeze.com> book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html> : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”