{"id":10337,"date":"2016-05-16T09:37:39","date_gmt":"2016-05-16T13:37:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jennytrout.com\/?p=10337"},"modified":"2016-05-16T09:37:39","modified_gmt":"2016-05-16T13:37:39","slug":"state-of-the-trout-reading-challenge-update-chicago-signing-and-book-info","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/?p=10337","title":{"rendered":"State Of The Trout: Reading Challenge Update, Chicago Signing, and Book Info"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good Monday, everyone! I’ve been super busy for the past few weeks getting\u00a0Second Chance<\/em> in shape to go out into the world, but now I feel like I can finally get my breath!<\/p>\n

Speaking of\u00a0Second Chance<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>Tune in tomorrow for your first look at\u00a0Second Chance<\/em>. I’ll be releasing an excerpt tomorrow, and one next week, as we gear up for the books’ release!<\/p>\n

Also speaking of Ian and Penny<\/strong>,\u00a0First Time<\/em>\u00a0will be out as audiobooks this month from Tantor Media. Penny’s book <\/a>will release on May 31, but Ian’s is already available<\/a>. And the narrator’s voice is fantastic. I kind of listened to this one with my hands over my face, blushing.<\/p>\n

Chicago area people!\u00a0<\/strong>Come out and see me this weekend, Saturday, May 21,\u00a0from 3-5 pm at the Hyatt Regency in Schaumburg. You can find more information, including a list of all all the amazing authors who’ll be there, here<\/a>. I’ll be signing copies of\u00a0The Baby<\/em> and\u00a0First Time<\/em>, but you’re welcome to bring your books or your Kindle covers. I also give away free stuff like pens and bracelets, and that’s always fun, so come snag some of that and chat with me, if you’d like!<\/p>\n

My Reading Challenge Progress!<\/h4>\n

I haven’t been reading as much lately because I’ve been working, but I did manage to get a few books in. In fairness, I’m pretty sure one of them was like nine billion pages.<\/p>\n

A Book You Haven’t Read Since High School:\u00a0<\/strong>Fear Street Cheerleaders: The First Evil,\u00a0<\/em>by R.L. Stine. I don’t remember why I thought to look these books up again, but I’m glad I did. I cheated on this entry a bit; I didn’t read this book when I was in high school. I read it in seventh or eighth grade. My problem is that I don’t remember reading anything for pleasure in high school that wasn’t written by Anne Rice, and while I absolutely still treasure those books, I don’t want to taint my memory with a reread by present day, post-feud me. So, I fudged and reached back a little further. I remembered a lot of FSC:TFE as happening differently, probably from reading all three books back-to-back-to-back. I forgot like half the characters. Reading it as an adult who knows the horror formula now from other movies and books, it all came back to me pretty quickly and I was like, “Oh my gosh, how did I not see this coming?” when I got to the twists that shocked me as a kid. Still, it stands the test of time. When do we get a Fear Street Cheerleaders movie?<\/p>\n

A Book That’s At Least 100 Years Older Than You:<\/strong>\u00a0Anne<\/em>, by Constance Fenimore Woolson. I originally picked this for “A book set in your home state”, due to the title character living on Mackinac Island, but switched categories when I found that the majority of the story takes place off the island. It is now one of my favorite books. I could write an entire post about all the things that make this book so great, but I’ll keep it brief: Anne, the eldest daughter of an elderly widower, finds herself forced into New York society through a series of various events. The drama is\u00a0real<\/em>. Anne becomes best friends with a glamorous woman who later becomes a romantic rival. Anne, despite being engaged to her childhood love, becomes the object of affection to not one, but two suitors. Anne becomes a teacher, a singer, an amateur botanist, a Civil War battlefield nurse, a detective, and a murder trial’s star witness. It’s just like, the biggest soap opera ever. There are definitely some “sign of the times” issues; Anne’s biracial\u00a0half-siblings are frequently described as being savage or conniving due to their Chippewa heritage. I found it interesting, though, that while two of the black characters in the book were referred to with the n-word once, it was used in dialogue by a character we were meant to dislike, as proof of what a shitty person they were. It really smashed the\u00a0“it was okay back then” argument for me when I read that. White people, we knew that was not an okay word that far back. Stop using that stupid defense.<\/p>\n

A Political Memoir<\/b>\u00a0The Speech Writer: A Brief Education in Politics<\/i>, by Barton Swaim. I wanted to pick something off the beaten path for this one. Swaim isn’t a politician, but he was hired as a speech writer for then-governor of South Carolina, Mark Sanford. Though sometimes I rolled my eyes at Swaim’s self-importance (he tends to make snotty comments about the grammar of non-writers), I really enjoyed this behind-the-scenes look at the train wreck governor who comes off as a mix of Kevin Spacey in\u00a0Swimming With Sharks<\/em>, Michael Scott from The Office<\/i>,\u00a0and Scrooge from\u00a0A Christmas Carol<\/em>\u00a0(Swaim describes Sanford cutting a piece from an employee’s birthday cake and walking away without even wishing the woman a happy birthday). By the time the narrative reaches Sanford’s bizarre 2009 disappearance and the revelation of his extramarital affair, I was weirdly invested, and as torn between dislike of the governor and pity for him. If you’re a fan of The Thick Of It<\/i>\u00a0or\u00a0Veep<\/em>, this book was like if Armando Iannucci wrote real life.<\/p>\n

That’s all the news that’s fit to print right now. I’m sure I’m forgetting something, but aren’t I always?<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Good Monday, everyone! I’ve been super busy for the past few weeks getting\u00a0Second Chance in shape to go out into the world, but now I…<\/p>\n

Read moreState Of The Trout: Reading Challenge Update, Chicago Signing, and Book Info<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10337"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10337"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10338,"href":"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10337\/revisions\/10338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}