#Mindy Mejia

[gardenofbookworms]

week #35 recommendation: bee

Leave No Trace by Mindy Mejia

▪︎ thriller novel ▪︎

ten years ago two women died and the last blackthorns disappeared. two years later, maya stark returned to her mother’s cabin and met dr. mehta. eight years after, lucas emerges from the woods and nearly chokes maya to death.

why? because he’s been locked up in congdon, a psychiatric facility, and he needs to get out—like, now. he needs to get back to the boundary waters immediately, and not just because of the hatred of ceilings his father passed down to him. they hold a part of him, something he left behind, something he can’t afford to lose. and maya, as his speech therapist, is going to help him. all he has to do is behave, play his part, and cool it with the assault and escaping tricks. but it quickly becomes clear that that isn’t enough. it’s not fast enough, and the only thing that is is to break out of congdon. maya is possibly the only person who could understand. but is that enough to let him go?

▪︎

i saw that coming from a mile away. whenever it’s a doctor-patient scenario you kinda just…know. but i’ll admit, it was built up (for the first half, anyway) really well. not too obvious, just subtle enough so that you can guess what’s coming next. other than that, i liked how the protesters and the media kept coming up throughout the story, albeit being really annoying for our main characters. i do feel like with a situation as controversial as this, it’s impossible to avoid any sort of celebrity status. and as frustrating that may be, it adds a realistic layer to the book. the breakout scene was pretty fun, too. the spray paint was a good idea…hm…

[2headed-disaster]

nine (9) people you'd like to know better

tagged by @rimouskis and @yabagofmalk

It's late, but it's happening, yay!

Last Song: So glad you asked, it's GODDAMNITALL by the Wonder Years. I've been going on what I guess you'd call a midwest emo binge lately, and there's something very fun about screaming "MEET ME ON THE FIRE ESCAPE IF YOU'RE COMING TO SAAAAAAVE ME" in my car alone.

Currently Watching: I'm making my way through the TV show "From" but I take frequent breaks because 1) I get emotionally invested in characters and these poor characters are in distress all the time and SO AM I when I watch 2) my job has been kicking my absolute ass lately so when I do have time for tv my thoughts go in the general direction of "what can I watch that's guaranteed to make me happy." As much as I love "From," it is not the right choice for this headspace lol.

Currently Reading: Haven't been reading a ton (see work comment above) but I did recently finish Leave No Trace by Mindy Mejia which was good! It didn't knock my socks off, but it was a quick, entertaining read with a couple of fun twists in there. I think most of my enjoyment was derived from the fact that it took place in Duluth which Duluth! Hey I've been there! The writing will not blow you away, but it's fast-paced and never really boring.

Current Obsession: Trying new things! Specifically, food and drinks! I'm trying to break out of my cooking habits which has been very rewarding! There's been a few recipes that were duds, but I don't let it discourage me the way I did in the past. I also have my standbys for alcoholic drinks, but I've been branching out and trying some local brews and wines and almost all have been great!

I feel a little embarrassed tagging anyone else since I'm so late to even do this, so I'm going to take the cop-out route and say anyone who sees this and who wants to do it should!

[youraufildespages]

En eaux troubles de Mindy Mejia

Il existe un endroit dans le Minnesota où une centaine de lacs gelés côtoient la forêt vierge. On appelle cette région sauvage les Boundary Waters. Seuls les plus expérimentés osent s’y aventurer. Tout le monde n’en ressort pas.  Après une adolescence troublée, Maya a enfin trouvé sa voie : elle est orthophoniste dans le centre psychiatrique pour détenus de Congdon dans le Minnesota. Grâce au Dr…

[queen-quotatious]

They think I'm brave. The truth is I'm not comfortable unless something's on fire or someone's having a meltdown. I don't know what to do with things that aren't broken. The quiet times . . . it's like I'm just waiting for things to go bad.

Mindy Mejia, Leave No Trace

[eandthezs-blog]

No one knows who she really is… Hattie Hoffman has spent her whole life playing many parts: the good student, the good daughter, the good girlfriend. But Hattie wants something more, something bigger, and ultimately something that turns out to be exceedingly dangerous. When she’s found brutally stabbed to death, the tragedy rips right through the fabric of her small-town community. It soon comes to light that Hattie was engaged in a highly compromising and potentially explosive secret online relationship. The question is: Did anyone else know? And to what lengths might they have gone to end it? Hattie’s boyfriend seems distraught over her death, but had he fallen so deeply in love with her that she had become an obsession? Or did Hattie’s impulsive, daredevil nature simply put her in the wrong place at the wrong time, leading her to a violent death at the hands of a stranger? Full of twists and turns, Everything You Want Me to Be reconstructs a year in the life of a dangerously mesmerizing young woman, during which a small town’s darkest secrets come to the forefront…and she inches closer and closer to death.

[emoherauoy]

Go to New York... Although it was my handwriting, the words were hers, whispered in the air all around me, breathing in the land rushing past, and they filled my chest with a buoyant kind of pain, a lover's keepsake that I would carry for the rest of my life, guiding me toward an impossible atonement. ...know that I loved you.

Mindy Mejia, Everything you want me to be

[tragedies-and-dreams]

The Dragon Keeper: A novel by Mindy Mejia — book review The Dragon Keeper tells a very specific type of story. This the third novel I've read by Mindy Mejia and it certainly has a unique premise.

[danielintheyard]

Summer Reading List 2017

[oratangip]

mindy mejia | everything you want me to be

[alinefromabook]

Hattie is 17 and has always felt like an outsider in her small hometown in Minnesota. She dreams of the day she graduates from high school and can run off to New York City. Her senior year begins and the school has a new English teacher, a young, married man, who will change her life forever. Peter and his wife have moved back to his wife’s hometown to care for his ailing mother-in-law, a woman who seems to hate him. As his wife becomes more and more involved with her mother’s care, Peter starts to feel like the odd man out, and he misses the vibrancy of their life in Minneapolis. Just a few weeks before graduation Hattie is found dead in an abandoned barn and suddenly the whole town suspects Peter. Will the local police chief be able to unravel the secrets of Hattie’s life and catch a murderer?

I found the mystery in this book to be a fascinating one with plenty of twists to keep you guessing. There is a lot of angst being worked out in this story. Both the teenage variety, as Hattie is straining against her small town life, and Peter’s more adult variety, as he struggles with a troubled marriage and a life that is not fulfilling to him. The author has done a great job in crafting her main characters in a way that makes them appealing to the reader and also draws the reader in to the story. “Everything You Want Me to Be” is a great story and should appeal to a broad range of readers. I highly recommend it!

Find it on Amazon!

[launer2014]

Todos Mienten

Hola Launer@s!!! La entrada del blog de hoy va sobre "Todos Mienten" una novela negra que narra el asesinato de Hattie una adolescente cuya meta es viajar a la ciudad de los sueños Nueva York para ser actriz. ¿Que secretos escondía? ¿Saldrá ahora todo a la luz?

Esperamos que tod@s estéis lo mejor posible en estos momentos.

🎭 Era la actriz perfecta 🎭

[rockislandadultreads]

Feminist Fiction: book recommendations

Madam by Phoebe Wynne

For 150 years, high above rocky Scottish cliffs, Caldonbrae Hall has sat untouched, a beacon of excellence in an old ancestral castle. A boarding school for girls, it promises that the young women lucky enough to be admitted will emerge “resilient and ready to serve society.” Into its illustrious midst steps Rose Christie: a 26-year-old Classics teacher, Caldonbrae’s new head of the department, and the first hire for the school in over a decade. At first, Rose is overwhelmed to be invited into this institution, whose prestige is unrivaled. But she quickly discovers that behind the school’s elitist veneer lies an impenetrable, starkly traditional culture that she struggles to reconcile with her modernist beliefs—not to mention her commitment to educating “girls for the future.” It also doesn’t take long for Rose to suspect that there’s more to the secret circumstances surrounding the abrupt departure of her predecessor—a woman whose ghost lingers everywhere—than anyone is willing to let on. In her search for this mysterious former teacher, Rose instead uncovers the darkness that beats at the heart of Caldonbrae, forcing her to confront the true extent of the school’s nefarious purpose, and her own role in perpetuating it. A darkly feminist tale pitched against a haunting backdrop, and populated by an electrifying cast of heroines, Madam will keep readers engrossed until the breathtaking conclusion.

I'll Take You There by Wally Lamb

I’ll Take You There centers on Felix, a film scholar who runs a Monday night movie club in what was once a vaudeville theater. One evening, while setting up a film in the projectionist booth, he’s confronted by the ghost of Lois Weber, a trailblazing motion picture director from Hollywood’s silent film era. Lois invites Felix to revisit—and in some cases relive—scenes from his past as they are projected onto the cinema’s big screen. In these magical movies, the medium of film becomes the lens for Felix to reflect on the women who profoundly impacted his life. There’s his daughter Aliza, a Gen Y writer for New York Magazine who is trying to align her post-modern feminist beliefs with her lofty career ambitions; his sister, Frances, with whom he once shared a complicated bond of kindness and cruelty; and Verna, a fiery would-be contender for the 1951 Miss Rheingold competition, a beauty contest sponsored by a Brooklyn-based beer manufacturer that became a marketing phenomenon for two decades. At first unnerved by these ethereal apparitions, Felix comes to look forward to his encounters with Lois, who is later joined by the spirits of other celluloid muses. Against the backdrop of a kaleidoscopic convergence of politics and pop culture, family secrets, and Hollywood iconography, Felix gains an enlightened understanding of the pressures and trials of the women closest to him, and of the feminine ideals and feminist realities that all women, of every era, must face.

Strike Me Down by Mindy Mejia

Nora Trier catches thieves. As a forensic accountant and partner in her downtown Minneapolis firm, she’s unearthed millions in every corner of the world. She prides herself on her independence, the most essential currency of accounting, until her firm is hired by Strike. An anti-corporate, feminist athletic empire, Strike is owned by Logan Russo, a brash and legendary kickboxer, and her marketing genius husband, Gregg Abbott. They’re about to host a major kickboxing tournament with twenty million dollars in prize money, and the chance for the champion to become the new face of the company. Gregg suspects his wife already has a new face in mind—a young trainer named Aaden, for whom Logan feels an unexpected connection. Days before the tournament begins, it’s discovered that the prize money is missing. Gregg hires Nora’s firm to find both the thief and the money but Nora has a secret connection to Strike that threatens her independence. Her partner pressures her into taking the case anyway, hinting he has information about Strike that could change the course of the investigation in a shocking and deadly way.

The Water Cure by Sophie Mackintosh

King has tenderly staked out a territory for his wife and three daughters, Grace, Lia, and Sky. He has laid the barbed wire; he has anchored the buoys in the water; he has marked out a clear message: Do not enter. Or viewed from another angle: Not safe to leave. Here women are protected from the chaos and violence of men on the mainland. The cult-like rituals and therapies they endure fortify them from the spreading toxicity of a degrading world. But when their father, the only man they’ve ever seen, disappears, they retreat further inward until the day three strange men wash ashore. Over the span of one blistering hot week, a psychological cat-and-mouse game plays out. Sexual tensions and sibling rivalries flare as the sisters confront the amorphous threat the strangers represent. Can they survive the men? A haunting, riveting debut about the capacity for violence and the potency of female desire, The Water Cure both devastates and astonishes as it reflects our own world back at us.

[esterexpositio]

top 10 favorite books

Honesty Hour, Ask me anything! Nothing will go unanswered

thanks for sending me this! so, most of the books i've ever read was in my teen years, so i'll put some that i've read in this time here, but i have no idea if i'd like them now tbh djhdjdj

1. The time of my life - Cecelia Ahern

2. The book of tomorrow - Cecelia Ahern (every book that i've read of this author is fucking great she's awesome)

3. The gift - Cecelia Ahern

4 - one of us is lying - Karen M. McManus (i've read this one two years ago and it's pretty great!!it has a lot of elite vibes)

5. Romance Concreto - Aimee Oliveira (it's a brazilian book that i think it's only available on kindle and it's the funniest and the cutest thing i've ever read in my life. I'm crazy to find another book like this one and i've failed so far)

6. Dizem por aí... - Jill Mansen (i have no idea what's the name of this book in english dkjfjd but anyway i've read it when i was a teen and i loved it. i still remember some things of this book.)

7 - Reconstructing Amelia - Kimberly McCreight (i read this book a long time ago and i remember it was pretty intense. I loved it)

8 - Behind her eyes - Sarah Pinborough

9 - Everything you want me to be - Mindy Mejia (i really like this book but i also like this author bc when i finished reading it i've made an analisys about the main character and sent an email to the author asking her if i was right and she said i was kdhdjdj it made me very happy)

10. Bird - Crystal Chan