WIP: Our Lives After the Fall

When my sister was 21, she got too drunk on a wine tour, tripped over her untied shoe-lace, hit her head on a rock and died. Actually, we all died- Luisa, Mami, Papi, and me. Since her accident, none of us have really lived.

I was 14 and without Luisa to fuss over, Mami focused all of her attention on me.

Where are you going? Who will be there? What time will you be finished? You know what, forget it I will take you and wait outside to bring you home.

It became much easier to, at first just not go anywhere, and later, to be the house where everyone came to after school, and then to become the girl who never went outside anymore. It's a slow progression but it feels fast. Like you just woke up one day afraid to leave your room, but really it happened in tiny increments.
〰〰〰〰〰〰〰 

*I've been reviewing my old works-in-progress to see if something jumps out at me or grabs my attention. Often, while traveling, I'd see a spot in the landscape that triggered a scene in  my head, and then the opening of a story soon follows. I think this one came to me while on a trip through the Central Coast of California; we were trying to get to Big Sur, but, alas, wildfires. We had to turn back. This is a piece I found on my phone in the Notes app. It might could still be something one day if I get bored enough:

Love & Balls,
Jaded
-----
but things just get so crazy
living life gets hard to do
and I would gladly hit the road, get up and go, if I knew
that someday it would lead me back to you

What I Read: March 2025 Edition

I read and listened to quite a number of books in March; this post took so long to write I almost scrapped it. But also, I found a lot of joy in these books last month, so why not share the wealth? Here we go:

1-3, 5. Heartstopper, Volumes 2-5 by Alice Oseman 🕮
I'm up to date with the series (a sixth volume is promised but not out yet) and my love for the story is unwavering. Oseman does such a great job at capturing teen romance: all the awkwardness and insecurities that accompany that age and the influx of hormones. I will add that Vol. 3 only got four stars from me because there was an implausible side story about the teachers, but then Vol. 4 came through pulling on my heartstrings while focusing on Charlie's mental health crisis. It's all so so so so good; I truly recommend it ✮✮✮✮✮

4. Lakewood by Megan Giddings🎧
This book is probably better as a physical read-- I will concede that there is something "lost in translation" when listening to an audiobook--but I did not feel grounded in the story at all. It's about a girl hard up for money volunteering to be a test subject at a research center that was paying a shit-ton of money (to her), but it all feels very Henrietta Lacks-ish. I can't even tell you what ended up happening because I was all the way lost. One day I'll read the actual book and see what I missed. ✮✮

6. The Midnight Feast by Lucy Foley🎧
This novel had everything I've been loving about audiobooks by British authors: multiple POVs and narrators; a mystery; tons of potential suspects with good reason to be the culprit; and a convoluted but good plot. Basically this posh woman promotes this expensive, clean-living lifestyle, which is a farce, of course, and uses her inherited mansion as a resort for her sheep/followers. Except she's a total bitch who hurt some people back in the day, and the time has come for her to pay the piper. OOOH it's so good, y'all should read it. ✮✮✮✮

7. On the Hustle by Adriana Herrera🎧
ALRIGHTY NOW. In a world where spicy romance novels barely have a grasp of the English language, Herrera bursts on the scene with PLOT, CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT, and a good amount of spice for the heathens (LOL!). It absolutely helps that the characters are New Yorkers, and the narrator is an amazing reader, and I was actually rooting for the main couple. The main girl follows bestie to Dallas to chase her dreams; her boss follows her in an effort to woo her. Except she kinda hates him, so how's he gonna make it happen? READ IT AND FIND OUT.  ✮✮✮✮✮

8. Here to Stay by Adriana Herrera🎧
Of course I follow up one with the other (even though this is the first book in the series) because I loved On the Hustle so much, but unfortunately it was just OK. Not spectacular. Still, good plot and characters, but maybe the novelty had worn off? Girl moves to Dallas for a job she believes in, but a consultant threatens to shut it all down. Or does he? Maybe, instead, they fall in love? It's warm and fuzzy but Hustle was better. ✮✮✮

9. The Christmas Guest by Peter Swanson 🕮

This novella combined my two loves--Christmas stories + murder! An American co-ed studying in London for a semester stays with a British classmate over the Christmas break, contemplates a fling with the friend's brother, has an encounter with a maybe serial killer, and writes all about it in her diary, which is how we, the reader, know all about it. But there's a twist I wish I could tell you but it took me by surprise and I want that for you, too. It was a great read. ✮✮✮✮

10. Nick & Charlie: A Heartstopper Novella by Alice Oseman 🕮

Can't stop, won't stop reading books that take place in this universe. I love everything Nick & Charlie. I'm obsessed with them. This book explores in depth their relationship, and the fact that Nick is about to head off to college while Charlie has to stay behind and finish a year of school, still, oh baby the tension! Do you remember the heartbreak of your first love? It's all over the pages of this book. I'm truly in love with these fictional characters. ✮✮✮1/2

11. A Caribbean Heiress in Paris by Adriana Herrera🎧
So thanks to a bookish friend, I tried another book by Herrera, this time the first in the Leonas series (there are two more but there's also a long wait at the library), and I have to say, yes, bring on the rest of the books. It's a historical romance, my first, and I have to applaud Herrera for making it believable that a Dominican-Scottish woman, head of a rum empire, leaves her island home to go to Paris and make a killing in the liquor business. Then she meets a Scottish Duke who's also trying to make a name with his whiskey business. Their worlds collide and an attraction grows. And grows. I was almost convinced to ditch my own boyfriend for a towering Scottish hunk, and y'all know how much I'm not attracted to white men. ✮✮✮✮✮

12, 13 & 15. Revive Me, Parts 1-3 by J.L. Seegars🎧
Hear me out. This author isn't terrible. She has a decent grasp of the language, and how to put a story together, and how to write characters that make the readers care about what happens to them. And she writes a decent spicy scene. HOWEVER, homegirl needs an editor so very bad. A lot of this book was, I don't know, really didn't need to be there. I fast-forwarded and slept through so much of these books I almost didn't include them in my March reads. I don't think I would recommend them unless I let you know that you will be exhausted by her prose a lot of the time. Of course, if you're only here for the smut, have at it. Still, proceed with caution. ✮✮1/2

14. Nine Lives by Peter Swanson🎧

After reading how critically acclaimed Swanson's books are, I tried another thriller, one that felt like an homage to Agatha Christie's And Then There Was None, one of my favorite Christie novels. And I was not disappointed. Nine people find their names on a list; they don't know each other and can't think of how they're related to each other, and then one by one, they're murdered. Now, how it all comes together was a bit if a let down, rather pedestrian as far as motives go, but still, I enjoyed the ride, so I'll definitely pick up another of Swanson's books in the future.  ✮✮✮1/2

16. Again by J.L. Seegars🎧

Yes, I'm crazy for choosing another spicy Seegars book, knowing she doesn't know how to edit herself, but it was only five hours long (it's a novella, in the same universe of the Revive Me characters), about a divorced couple at a Mexican resort for their siblings' destination wedding. The ex-hubby is determined to win his ex-wife back. The journey is actually a fun time but I couldn't give it a higher rating because again, Seegars muddied the writing with so many extra sentences that didn't need to be there. The difference between this and Revive Me, though, is that I'd recommend this one. ✮✮1/2

Now, I know that the amount of spicy books I've read last month makes me out to be some sort of horny housewife, but trust that this Jaded New Yorker mostly rolls her eyes and laughs at how the men growl while they climax, women end up with blown pupils because the sex is so good, and couples keep confusing lust with love and I'm supposed to believe it. It's all very entertaining, though. Jaded Bae even commented, as I laughed out loud at a particular scene: "It doesn't work for you because you think love is a joke." 

He ain't never lied.

Love & Balls,

Jaded

-----

ain't it fun

livin' in the real world?

ain't it good

bein' all alone?

What I Read: February 2025 Edition

So listen, I follow a nice handful of BookTubers, and one of the things they like to do is a recap of everything they read, which I use to feed my To Be Read (TBR) list. I'm not going to do a video because I'm not a YouTuber, and the thought of setting up a camera and a backdrop and the lights, and hair/makeup/wardrobe is my version of the Eighth Circle of Hell, because we all know that my baseline aesthetic is depression sweatsuit AT BEST. 

But I have my blog again; I can participate thusly.

Here's what I read and/or listened to last month as I desperately tried to escape reality:

1. Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes🎧

This was a bit of a slow burn, PG romance about a widow who rents out her guest house to a failed baseball pitcher, and the relationship they end up building. What stood out here is there's a B-plot between Evvie and her best friend, a man, and neither one is pining for the other. I love a platonic friendship. Like, they truly exist; beautiful! ✮✮✮✮

2. Faithless (Grant County Series #5) by Karin Slaughter🎧
Do y'all watch WILL TRENT on TV? Well it's based on a series of books by Slaughter, and I've read them all. Correction, I've DEVOURED them all. But when they were done I was all, "I need to know about Sara Linton's life before she met Will," Linton being the protagonist of the Grant County books (along with her ex/husband, Jeffrey Tolliver). So I started the Grant County books back in December, and the first one, maybe two, were good, but I have to be honest, at this point I'm reading them just for closure. It's not great. The TRENT books are much, much better. It's about Linton, a doctor and medical examiner, and Tolliver, a police chief in Grant County, Georgia, and the cases that they work on together, which usually puts one or both of them in harm's way. Each book, I keep wishing they all die in a fire... ✮✮✮

3. Heartstopper, Volume 1 by Alice Oseman 🕮
YOU GUYSSSSSSSS. I abso-fucking-lutely LOVE the Heartstopper series--both on screen and now in book form. One of the first things I'm going to do once I'm gainfully employed again is buy all of the books so I can reread them every time I'm feeling blue. It is a queer-positive YA graphic novel about Charlie, an out teen, and Nick, a newly out/bi-curious boy, who fall in love. It's truly innocent and sweet and loving and just... I want to be a teenager again just to be Charlie and Nick's friend. ✮✮✮✮✮

4. Goal (St. Louis Series, Book 1) by Alexandria House🎧
So ya girl tried out an ultra spicy book to see what all the fuss was about, but made sure and chose one by a Black author featuring Black characters because BLACK HISTORY MONTH, and BAY-BEEEEEEE, I get it. I understand why people read this. I just wish I had more of a warning. In this one, a famous hockey player takes custody of younger siblings he barely knows after his estranged father passes away, and then starts a romance with the nanny his fiance hires to take care of the kids because she doesn't want to do it herself. And listen if Spice is your thing, the spice was spicing in this book. As for me, myself, personally, I find sexy talk mad corny and cringe, so I had more second-hand embarrassment than I expected. Not sure I'll read the rest of the series, but I did kind of like this one! ✮✮✮1/2

5. Exit West by Mohsin Hamid🎧
I've discussed my feelings about this book with y'all already, but I will add that I do plan to read a physical copy of this one day because the audiobook made me feel a bit scattered; I need to read the book and see if it's more grounding. ✮✮✮

6. The Writing Retreat by Julia Bartz🎧
I chose this thinking it was a supernatural horror and it was just a plain old thriller, so right there you can tell I was a bit disappointed with this book. This woman goes to a selective writing retreat hosted by one of her literary icons at a remote estate, and finds that her former friend, current enemy is also attending (plus three other women). Once there, they all learn that they are going to compete against each other by writing a whole ass novel from scratch; winner gets published, of course. But this is a thriller, so you already know some sinister shit is afoot. I liked it but I didn't, if it makes sense? I'm not sure if everyone's behaviour was believable, even for a fiction novel, and that would take me out of the story. And the ending was trash. Overall, ✮✮✮

7. Neruda on the Park by Cleyvis Natera 🕮
Let me tell y'all about this Garbage Pail Kid of a book I had the misfortune of choosing for the first meeting of the Jaded Book Club. Like, my friends were within their rights to beat my ass for choosing this book. It was awful. Mother and daughter deal with the gentrification of their Washington Heights, NYC neighborhood in peculiar ways. The characters were unlikeable, behaved in unlikely manners; there were cop-out conclusions to storylines; the prose was forced; the storytelling was clunky; and everyone needed a hot slap, including the author and her editor for allowing this book to be published in this state of disarray. Don't read this book. I only scored it as high as I did because there's a scene in the end that was exciting, and even then I was told I scored it too high. ✮✮

8. Lone Women by Victor LaValle🎧
This was supposed to be horror and YET AGAIN I was tricked because it was just a thriller wrapped in a cozy historical fiction sweater. While I was invested in the fate of the characters, and the storytelling was decent, it was lacking something that I can't pinpoint, but I won't let that keep me from telling folks to check it out. Adelaide moves from California to stake a claim in Montana, and brings with her this heavy ass trunk filled with what she calls her burden. Adelaide is Black, by the way. Montana at this point in the story is quite empty. Her 'burden' starts eviscerating folks. Yeah, it's a lot. You might like it.✮✮✮

After all this, you'll feel the urge to recommend a book to me, I know, but PLEASE RESIST. I currently have over 200 books on my TBR list and it's starting to cause some stress. I don't want to burn out; I've only just found joy in books again.

Love & Balls,
Jaded
-----
well I've been scratching around in the dirt
looking for meaning in the cold, cold earth
to gather in what's left of your self-worth
'cause only love is what survives of us

Writing Prompt, 2.26.25

I've been contemplating resuming my now-defunct writing career. I mentioned this, right? Right. I mean, just look at my phone's home screen; it's been trying to drag me out of this funk for half a decade now, poor thing. Anyways, a few of the books I've read have reminded me about the joy writing used to bring; they've lit the tiniest of fires. I may have written a small synopsis or two. But so far I remain way too clogged with depression and anxiety and a general abundance of ennui. 

So let's try a little experiment; play along. Long ago and far away, when I was known (on here) as THE Master of Fine Arts, friends and followers would tell me, "I don't know what to write about," and ask me for writing prompts. I still have a lot of them saved on my trusty red thumb drive. Maybe it will shake some of you up?

You wake up here, in Cuba. You feel groggy and sluggish, and don't remember how you got here. The last thing you recall is leaving your loft in Philadelphia to meet your cousin for dinner. Everything after locking your door is gone. What now?

Feel free to leave your response in the comments, or email me, if you'd like, but it's not mandatory. As long as this prompt gets you writing and thinking creatively, that's all that matters!

Love & Balls,

Jaded

-----

una foto bonita 

un atardecer hermoso

una bailaíta' 

tu cadenita de oro