Wit & Travesty

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Announcement: We’re Hosting an Instagram Challenge!

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After sharing my recent post about upgrading your Instagram game, I have a new fun announcement!

For the month of July, I will host an Instagram challenge! It will be called #HalfYearMarkGoal.

The idea behind it is that we’ll hit the middle of 2017 during July, and many of us still have goals, resolutions, or bucket list items that we want to get done! Since summertime is a great time to try out these goals, I figured this challenge could open up to include just about everyone I know to participate.

Here’s some insight on how the challenge will work. I want as many people to participate as possible and I wanted to give you a few weeks of preparation to pick out your goal. Much excite!

How Will This Work?

I’ll provide a prompt for each day of July on Instagram and you respond to each prompt with an Instagram post! The prompts will basically let you brag about whatever you’re working on. You can participate as much or as little as you’d like. Just put the hashtag #HalfYearMarkGoal on each post so I and everyone else on the challenge can see your posts. Bonus points if you comment or like each other’s stuff!

So who are some ways you can participate? Here are examples of goals or projects that you could use for the prompt:

  • Fitness/health
  • Cooking
  • Yoga/meditation
  • Writing
  • Blogging
  • Photography
  • Learning a new language
  • Visiting a new city
  • Starting a family
  • Adopting a new pet
  • Reading
  • Learning to sing or play an instrument
  • Bullet journaling
  • Collecting
  • Crafting
  • Decorating
  • Fashion
  • Sewing/cosplaying
  • Drawing/painting
  • Hiking
  • Gratitude/happiness

This is just what I could come up with off the top of my head. I’m sure you could contribute something unique and fun!

What Should You Post?

You can go about this any way that works best for you. Start by sharing this post or my Instagram post on your social media to let everyone know that you’ll participate. Accountability is key for achieving your goals!

Next, just answer the prompt based on your preference. One idea is to share a picture that reflects the prompt, then explain more in the caption area below. Or, you can have a generic photo (like this one that shares the prompt) and explain everything in the caption area. For that, you can simply regram or reshare what I post. Some even provide a written response to the prompt in their photo. You could even do a mixture of these ideas with the new swipe feature on Instagram.

Whatever best reflects your goal or project is the name of the game!

I Want In!

To get a headcount before we begin, just comment below if you’re joining, or comment on my Instagram challenge post if you want in. Also, reshare or regram the image with all the prompts to tell your followers that you will participate. Please spread the word!

Check this post for further updates and answers to questions you may have. I want this to be a fun summer Instagram challenge, and I hope it inspires you to do something new and special!

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Book Review: Fall of the Titan

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book cover fall of the titan by christina ochsHey, Leute!

I know it’s been a while since we’ve done a book review, but we’ve got a line up of great book recommendations for you this month! Today we’re gushing about Fall of the Titan by Christina Ochs. This is book #5 of the Desolate Empire series and it was released about a month ago.

Rating: 5 stars

Synopsis:

As the title suggests, one mighty character will fall. It’s only a matter of whom.

In book five, we get to follow King Lennart, Elektra, Teodora, Braeden, Trystan, Maryna, and Anton and the parts they play in this maddening war.

King Lennart is poised to lead his side to victory and finally put an end to Teodora’s reign. He must muster the strength he needs to represent his side of the war so he can soon lead a peaceful life with his queen and child.

Elektra does what she can to ally with the right people to forever separate herself from her mother. Her choices will take her down a path she least expects.

Braeden and Gwynneth play their roles to work as Lennart’s allies to assemble enough troops to finally squash Teodora. Bad decisions from the past haunt both of them as a result.

Trystan and Anton are determined to get Maryna and Natalya free from the enemy and do what they can to be brave for those they love. Meanwhile, Maryna begins prematurely stepping to the plate as the future ruler of her kingdom.

What I enjoyed:

Once again, Ochs provides a jam-packed novel with a ton going on. The pace is still very steady and controlled just like her past novels. You’ll feel like you’re in the book forever but there’s always something going on. Someone is captured by the other side, someone makes a sudden change of plans and you wait for the other side to find out.

Because there is so much going on with each chapter, Ochs deserves praise for keeping things in check by offering simple reminders of things like where people are located, which side the secondary characters are on, and especially how old each character is. For example, Anton and Maryna are just growing up right before your eyes and it helps to know their ages at times.

I read this book like it was going to be the last one—just like I have been doing for book three and four! I keep thinking there’s no way this war can keep going, but Ochs keeps all her plates spinning. You just have to invite yourself in to watch how things continue to get complicated and how decision from each and every novel come back to bite these characters.

You’re killin’ me, Christina! You hold closure just beyond my nose with each book. Now I wait patiently for book six so I can figure out what happens to everyone, especially Gwynneth. I’ve been rooting for her since day one.

If you’d like to learn more about Christina Ochs and her work, you can catch up with her via social media:

Have you read this novel? Do you have your own thoughts about it? Share with me in the comments!

Book Review: False River

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book cover false river by h. g. reedHey, Leute!

I know it’s been a while since we’ve done a book review, but we’ve got a line up of great book recommendations for you this month! Today we’re gushing about False River by H.G. Reed which just came out three weeks ago. The book just recently came out, so show it some love and let us know in the comment section or via social media if you have any thoughts about False River. Remember: the quickest way to a writer’s heart is to review and share their work. Enjoy!

Rating: 4 stars

Synopsis:

After a decade, the devil has come again for Joe—to make yet another deal. In exchange for his already lost soul, Joe must do the unthinkable in an unreasonably short amount of time. With the devil dancing on his back, Joe finds himself soon surrounded by angelic farmhands with the intent to give him and his orchard a fighting chance.

Joe must learn to trust his new farmhands quickly if he has any hopes of leading a peaceful life with his wife and daughter in the wooded peaks of the North Georgia Mountains. Will Joe have the strength to resist past transgressions, or will he remain forever a shell of a man?

What I enjoyed:

Reed does a great job creating wonderful characters and charming dialog. Those two things can make or break a novel for me, and I certainly wasn’t disappointed.

Reed had the task of making Joe an average man but equally special so we would understand why the devil won’t leave him alone. I recognized this as a potential of creating a “chosen one” trope but she navigates this well. Joe continues to learn about his importance in his past history with the devil, but realizes that he’s still a normal man and wants more than anything to be normal. He’s easy to sympathize with and truly has a lot of heart—for someone who’s been without a soul for a decade.

Ellie May was also well executed. In Reed’s Christian-fantasy canon, her devil is actually female with a teenage girl’s form. Her dialog, character ticks, and overall personality made for an interesting adversary that will really make you rethink the villain or devil trope. Reed does a good job of making her scary as hell (pun intended) but also making her a sympathetic character—we tend to enjoy these kinds of villains.

Overall, I really enjoyed Reed’s use of plot. She adds onto the reader’s knowledge brick by brick to aid to the suspense and intrigue of the novel. You wouldn’t think there would be a huge showdown on a orchard in Georgia, but Reed brings it.

You’ll love the way she mixes modern Christian theology with her own interpretations and additions. I won’t say more on that, because I don’t want to spoil your experience.

What I didn’t enjoy:

While I enjoyed the symbolism and extended metaphors this novel had to offer about forgiveness and love, the novel featured a few repeated sermons. Throughout the novel, I noticed the writer would put emotion into words in a satisfying way, just to “tell” what just happened soon after. The author could’ve trusted that her readers would follow her meaning a bit more.

This book was an absolute delight to read and it left me feeling all warm and hopeful. I’m excited about Reed’s debut novel and I look forward to her future work. If you’d like to learn more about H.G. Reed and her work, you can catch up with her via social media:

Have you read this novel? Do you have your own thoughts about it? Share with me in the comments!

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