Tug of War

There's a never good way to admit that there are cracks in your relationship, especially when you've been so happy for so long.
There are never right answers your friends can give you when you're in the thick of it. They can try. But, there's no magical answer that can get you to feel whole again.
When is too long to fight? What's holding on too hard? How do you know when to keep fighting or when it's time to quit?
Is there a point where it's just sad and pathetic to keep going? Does everyone around you see the breaking point while you keep struggling for something that's never going to heal?

What if you want to give up but the other person doesn't? If you don't give up, but they do?
How can you tell if a relationship is over or it's just a really hard time to get through? What if you're not supposed to be fighting because the end if inevitable? How do you let go of something you want even though it's broken?
Why can't your friends give you advice you can take when they've been through the same thing? Do they disappear because they don't know how to help or do you unconsciously push them away?
Is the heart ever whole again from relationship to relationship? Or is there a piece of yourself floating around with the person you left behind or that left you behind? Does their piece take the place of the piece they took from you? How does a heart beat correctly with pieces of other people trying to work together?

How is it fair that during the socially accepted time of our lives to find our "soul mate" and our "true love" that our bodies wage war against us and makes us the ugliest we're ever going to look with acne all over our faces, oily hair, gangly limbs, misshapen breasts, and  crooked teeth?
How do you end up so far off the page from the person you love that you're not even in the same book anymore?
Why is it wrong to love more than one person? How is it possible not to? How is it possible to not be attracted to more than one person? And, how do you choose?

41. Passion

Book 41: Passion by Lauren Kate (A-)

This is the third book in the Fallen series, and I was slightly disappointed by it. It had the same vibe and carried true to the mood of the first two Fallen books, but this one was so repetitive.

Paul Bettany in the film Legion

Lucinda Price has pieced together from books one and two that her life and the ones before that are part of a never-ending curse. Her lover, Daniel, is a fallen angel who finds her life after life when she reincarnates to the appropriate ages, pursues her love, then she dies in a fiery explosion during the age of 17. It has a Twilight ring to it with the way their love is endless, desperate, and slightly scary. But Luce is no Bella Swan. In Passion, she questions this love she feels for Daniel and the love Daniel has for her. Is it real? Is she being manipulated? Is Daniel's love for the current Lucinda a new love or the returning love from a Lucinda of the past? With the help of a mystical figure in the physical form of a stone gargoyle, Luce travels through "Announcers" to several of her past lives to unlock the key to the curse and find out how to change it. Daniel, in the meantime, pursues her always a minute too late and recollects old memories, old conversations, and pieces together his own puzzle. At the end, they meet in at the beginning - the fall of Lucifer.
The ending was really the clincher for this novel. The description and thought put into Lucifer's Fall and the world of Heaven was beautiful and breathtaking. The beginning worked well too. But the middle... it was slow and repetitious. Chapter after chapter, the reader visits the past life of Luce and it's like the one you just read about. The gargoyle Bill steals her clothes that match the time period, she searches for her former self, she finds her former self, she finds the Daniel of the time, and tries to figure out what's going on. The only thing that really changes is where they are: Versailles, the Globe Theater, ancient Egypt...
The only breather between Luce's lives was Daniel's chapters, but they were also the same. Still, Daniel is a much more interesting character to a 20-year-old girl like me who loves true romance and an ultimate romantic hero. And, he's a beautiful, pure angel to top it off! In Daniel's chapters, his character deepens past the worried lover of Luce's who refuses to explain anything. You learn about the pain he goes through with each of Luce's deaths and how his relationship with supporting character and dark angel Cam became so tense.
Though Passion wasn't what I had hoped, I'm so happy some answers finally appeared. With the dark twist of an ending, I'm bouncing off the walls for the fourth and final novel, Rapture! It's coming out in 2012, and I can't wait!

Un-readables

I pulled some novels off my book shelf that I'll more than likely never end up reading (at least any time soon)! We have:

1. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

2. The Jane Austin novels

3. Fall of Giants by Kek Follet

4. The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane

I want to read War and Peace, but no matter how hard I try... I can never it make it through. I bought The Red Badge of Courage at a secondhand store because it had a beautiful binding, and I'm shallow enough that I enjoy having classic titles on my bookshelf even when I haven't read them. The Ken Follet novel was a Christmas present that I asked for. I was completely unaware of how long or big it was!! The plan is to read it, but my hopes aren't high. The Jane Austin novels were a gift, which I loved because once again, they're beautifully bound and they're a matching set. Will I read them? I'm sorry, Jane Austin, you put me to sleep!

What's on your shelf that you'll never read?

Movie Minute: Line dancing at Coyote Joe's

My new stepfather is a line dance instructor at a local bar called Coyote Joe's. My mother has been trying to get me to come along for over a year now, and I finally did... but even better, I dragged Stuart with me!! This is Ma and Mitch doing some line dance business...

Photo of the Day October 28

This is where I club my mother in the head and stuff her into my new suitcase! The best part... she has no idea!

Happy birthday, Ma!!! 

Photo of the Day October 27

Yes, it's my sister with a bag on her head! Enough said!!

Photo of the Day October 25

For my 20th birthday, my family, Stuart, and I went to the North Carolina Zoological Park. Aside from the Outer Banks, it's my favorite place in North Carolina. This time, the zoo had two new ocelots in their Sonora Desert house. I have always loved the ocelots!! They're the cutest cats. This male cub actually came up from where he was sleeping with his sibling to the glass when Stuart and I were watching him. I was so excited and pretended that I could pet him as he nosed against the glass where my hand was. It was the best part of the whole trip!