Book Review: The Shadow of the Bear

First off, thanks to my little (adopted) sister, Delaney, for lending me this book. She said it was one of her favorite books and, as she is a fellow Janeite, I trusted her to not steer me wrong with literature. It was a good thing I did because I ended up thoroughly enjoying this book.

The Shadow of the Bear by Regina Doman is a modern day retelling of the Grimm Brothers' version of the Snow White and Red Rose fairytale. What I appreciated the most was that it was unabashedly Catholic. I found no cliches or stereotypical characteristics associated with faithful Catholics. The female protagonists, Blanche and Rose Brier, are devout Catholics who stay true to the Church's teachings while recognizing their own faults (Blanche's jealousy towards her sister, Rose's carelessness). Unlike some Catholic fiction novels that only show the positive qualities in their characters, this novel showed the teenage girls in a very believable and likable manner. The antagonists were also great; I know so when I wish they were real life people I could kick in the shins. lol. I won't go into more detail because I really want others to read this novel. Some things were predictable (for me; I'm not easily surprised and am a seasoned veteran when it comes to mystery novels) throughout the story but I was completely enthralled during the denouement and I was excited to find out what would happen next. I will not say any big spoilers in case anyone wants to read the book for themselves but let's just say that the ending was completely satisfying and that Mrs. Doman wrapped up the novel very nicely.

Though this novel is aimed at teenagers (and, I am guessing, specifically teenage girls), I found it entertaining and thrilling. I honestly couldn't put it down and read the last 80-90 pages without getting up from my bed. I was tired and I wanted to sleep but I was really sucked into the story. At the end, the 2 a.m. bedtime was worth it. It also gave me confidence that I had made the right choices with my own characters in the novel I've been working on.

In a nutshell: If you appreciate good Catholic literature with positive messages, and don't mind the whole fairy tale aspect of it, then I highly recommend it. Again, it is aimed for teenagers but this 25 year-old sincerely enjoyed the book from start to finish and can't wait to start reading the sequel. :) I hope some of you end up reading this novel. :)

Alright, I need to get the book review for one of the Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati books ready so I'm going to spend the rest of my day reading and writing. I hope y'all have a great day. :)

As always, thanks for reading and God Bless!

St. Teresa of Avila and My Creative Writing Assignment

Because I don't have much to write today, mainly because I'm on a time crunch due to a professor pushing up the due date from next Monday to tonight, I am sharing a homework assignment. Luckily, it is something Catholic related because, as I said, my goal this Lent was to focus on Catholic literature.

For my Creative Writing class, we had to take a poem, song, short story, play, etc. and change its genre; the theme for this week was genres. I took the opportunity to infuse my faith with my assignment. Yes, I am shameless but I don't care. lol. Anyway, I am sharing what I wrote, and it's word for word what I submitted.

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I took an excerpt from the autobiography of St. Teresa of Avila (Catholic nun and writer), which can be considered as a non-fictional autobiography. I turned it into a fictionalized drama.

Original:

“I went to great extremes in my vain anxiety about this, though I took not the slightest trouble about what I must do to live a truly honourable life. All that I was seriously concerned about was that I should not be lost altogether. My father and sister were very sorry about this friendship of mine and often reproved me for it. But, as they could not prevent my friend from coming over to the house, their efforts were of no avail, for when it came to doing anything wrong I was very clever. I am sometimes astonished at the harm which can be caused by bad company; if I had not experienced it I could not believe it. This is especially so when one is young, for it is then that the evil done is greatest. I wish parents would be warned by me and consider this very carefully. The result of my intercourse with this woman was to change me so much that I lost nearly all my soul‘s natural inclination to virtue, and was greatly influenced by her, and by another person who indulged in the same pastimes.” (The Life of Teresa of Jesus by Teresa of Avila)

My Version:

“I went to great extremes in my vain anxiety about this, though I took not the slightest trouble about what I must do to live a truly honorable life,” she explained to me as she took the seat next to mine.

There was a sadness in her eyes that had not faded over the years. I did not say anything, for fear of being disrespectful. I mean, how many times do you get to talk to a real life saint? Instead I kept listening.

“All that I was seriously concerned about was that I should not be lost altogether.“ She looked intently at me to see if I was still listening to her. I nodded, encouraging her to go on.

“My father and sister were very sorry about this friendship of mine and often reproved me for it. But, as they could not prevent my friend from coming over to the house, their efforts were of no avail, for when it came to doing anything wrong I was very clever.”

As she took a break to drink from the glass of water I had placed in front of her, my mind wandered off to a distant memory. Did she know that I had had a similar experience? Was this a lesson God was teach me through St. Teresa?

“I am sometimes astonished at the harm which can be caused by bad company; if I had not experienced it I could not believe it,” she continued as I snapped out of my own thoughts.

“This is especially so when one is young, for it is then that the evil done is greatest. I wish parents would be warned by me and consider this very carefully. The result of my intercourse with this woman was to change me so much that I lost nearly all my soul‘s natural inclination to virtue, and was greatly influenced by her, and by another person who indulged in the same pastimes.”

“Is that what’s happening to me?” I asked more afraid of the answer than anything else at that moment. “The friendship I have are keeping me from being good?”

She did not answer me. The classical music station that was set to turn on when my alarm went off did just that.

My eyes flew open, taking in the bright sunlight that was flooding into my room. It had just been a dream, though it was more real and relative than anything I could ever imagine myself.
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And there you have it. The professor said she wasn't going to criticize what we wrote so... yeah. If she does, I don't care. I will not back down from my beliefs... or my want of sharing those beliefs. Hey, when I say I'm sticking to something (like no Twitter - ugh, so hard!) then I do it. :D

Anyway, I am off to take a break (I've been sitting at the kitchen table for hours now) before I have to focus on my other classes.

Oh, by the way, I finished in time to go see Fr. Stan Fortuna perform at Catholic Underground but, unfortunately, my Humanities professor thought it would be fun to make us miss our Saturday night plans by making us attend an online class discussion. I will have to talk to him about that, and about how it's unfair that I could lose points on Saturday evenings/nights because he decides to hold "class discussions" on these days. I am NOT missing Sr. Tracey Dugas (and the rest of the Daughters of St. Paul)'s Discernment 101 session (second session) next Saturday because of this. I have Masses and important things to do than to sit home and discuss what I've already done and understood that week. /semi-rant. lol.

Okay, now I'm off to take a tea and cookies break before my online meeting in half an hour. :D

As always, thanks for reading and God Bless!



P.S./Edit: nevermind, the discussions on Saturdays are optional for extra credit. Great... I find this out too late. Oh well. :(

Happy Fat Tuesday; Lent Plans.

Doesn't my first attempt at vegan pancakes look pretty successful, especially since I winged it when it came to the recipe? Since I am allergic to dairy and eggs, I have to improvise many dishes that contain these ingredients. I used almond milk as a substitute for regular milk (you can also use soy or rice milk; I am not a fan of either) and applesauce to replace the eggs. The pancakes came out really good and fluffy so I was a happy camper. Since I forgot to get some maple syrup, I used honey... which was still so good. :) If anyone wants to try them, let me know. Though I winged it, I still have exact details on how many cups of this and tablespoons of that to use. :)

Well... Happy Fat Tuesday everyone! I know some of my friends from England and Ireland call it Shrove Tuesday, which I occasionally call it too just because it sounds nicer than Fat Tuesday, lol. I have made pancakes for the family today. I have been blessed with the gift of being able to make dishes from scratch and have them coming out quite edible. lol. I know the secular world is treating today as a gluttonous "holiday" in which they can eat and drink whatever they want because they want, but they don't know what the actual day is all about. If you're not sure where Mardi Gras' roots come from, you can read about it here.

I am not stuffing myself today because a) my impressive eating habits are out of whack at the moment and b) I don't fast during Lent. Now, before you begin to lecture me about how fasting is part of the season, let me explain why I don't, or can't, fast. There are two main reasons why I never go more than a couple of hours without eating... 1) hunger actually worsens the anxiety symptoms and 2) I have inherited my mother's hypoglycemia type illness. If I don't eat at least a small meal every four hours, well... let's just say it's not pretty. You don't want to see a shaking, cold sweating, lightheaded, really weak, nearly fainted me. I've freaked people out before when I've attempted to fast; I get really sick. I will be limiting the amounts of red meat I eat, though, and eating more chicken and tuna. I need some sort of poultry or fish (at the minimum). I can't go with only vegetables, breads, and liquids. I've tried it before. I don't like not fasting along with everyone but the Church excuses me because of my underlying medical restrictions.

"Those who are excused from fast or abstinence Besides those outside the age limits, those of unsound mind, the sick, the frail, pregnant or nursing women according to need for meat or nourishment, manual laborers according to need, guests at a meal who cannot excuse themselves without giving great offense or causing enmity and other situations of moral or physical impossibility to observe the penitential discipline."

If you want to learn more about fasting during Lent, visit this page on EWTN.

Almost everyone I know is giving up something for Lent. Last year I limited my Facebook time. The year before that I gave up football (soccer) matches because they took a lot of my free time. No, really, they did. This year I am giving up my biggest "free time" consumer... Twitter. I'm a social person (online at least; I can't say the same for in person conversations, lol) so it'll be really hard to give up. With all the free time I will have from not tweeting, I will be reading more Catholic literature. Because I will go cuckoo bananas without social interaction (and because many of the friends I used to go out with have moved away from Southern California), I will be keeping touch with everyone via Gmail (and thus Google Buzz) and Facebook.

Oh, and, I'm also giving up non-Catholic literature as well. (side note: books I need to read for my classes are the exception to that.) I am putting Jane Austen on hold and brushing up on theology and saints' biographies. I will also be writing less of my novel (which is fine 'cause I'm practically done anyway) and spending more time blogging. Have you noticed that since I've put the extra effort to finish the novel, I've neglected this blog a bit? Sorry about that. I have a goal for the Lenten season, and it's to write one blog per day. See, I've noticed that the more I blog, the more I keep my focus on my faith. Whenever I have to write about something related to our Catholic faith, I like to research what I don't know (or know little about) so that I can make a good post. And in doing this, I also focus less on myself and my wants. I want to focus on the Lord and on everything Christ did for our salvation during this season. I am also going to think long and hard about the venial sins I commit (bad habits that won't die without a fight) and see what I can do to prevent them from happening.

In a nutshell, I am determined to do things properly this year... as if my mom who's still reverting back to the Church. She's also missing the Latin Masses (which she grew up going to) but I will save that story for a future post. :D

I should get going. I have to add people to Facebook and remind everyone that it will be easiest to get a hold of me through it and through email (which is catholicnerdwriter [at] gmail [dot] com). I also have to figure out what I'm doing tomorrow. I am definitely watching the Mass on EWTN (10:30 a.m EST, 7:30 a.m. PST) because I love watching Pope Benedict XVI giving Masses. :D

I hope everyone isn't too stuffed by now. ;)

As always, thanks for ready and God Bless!

Is My Novel Catholic Literature?

As many of you have read, via my twitter, I have been hard at work on my novel in the past couple of weeks. In fact, the sequel is already in the works as well. (There are a total of 3 planned books in the series.) I have been working on this novel for quite some time now... and it's taken longer because a few chapters are being re-written. There are a few reasons for this, mostly because I want to make it more realistic (and closer to actual events that inspired certain chapters and characters). With these changes I've gotten one question: are the changes done to make the novel more Catholic? The answer is no... because I already had the fate of the characters and the story in mind when I was still dreaming up how I would flesh out the story and dialog.

SPOILERS AHEAD (Skip to the next paragraph if you don't want to know the themes).
From the beginning, the character Lina was always going to be Catholic and the character Will was not. That's how it is in real life - I'm obviously Catholic and the inspiration for Will's character is not. Though I (and thus Lina) don't shove Catholicism down the reader's throat, I do mention it and other things we believe such as being pro-life, pro-abstinence, and attending Mass and confessions regularly. It's a part of who Lina is. If this qualifies it as Catholic literature, then I guess it is. Again, I do this without being preachy.

I've always disliked books that try to convert me to whatever the author's religion is. Nice try, but not even professor and classes at school have succeeded. As a Religious Studies major at a public college (for now... I return to my Catholic college next semester), I've studied the various religions and all of them have just strengthen my faith. I'm just going to write about Catholicism the way it is, the way one lives it faithfully, without any secret motives. I've read many books in which a character is Catholic, but the way they are portrayed is horrible. Either they are Catholic but they "fall away" and start sinning like crazy, or they're portrayed as being completely psychotic and obsessed about their faith to the point where they hurt others around them. It totally ticks me off that there aren't enough good Catholic characters in literature, but I hope so change that (with the little I can do). I am not saying that Lina will be "perfect" Catholic model, because I know I'm certainly not, but I hope that people who aren't Catholic will realize that we're not the way we've been portrayed in literature (or the media for that matter).

As for how the none Catholic characters (like Will) will fare... well, I guess you'll just have to read the novel. I did not bash any religion or any person's lack of religion. I just wrote things as close to real life as I could; portraying how life actually is... not how idealistic or pessimistic it can be, like in other fictional stories.

And while I'm still thinking about this... I forgot I have to go rewrite a certain chapter. This is what happens when you start off with one idea and then, as you write, it changes course -- for the better! At this rate, I'll never get done. lol. I hope I will before the semester starts next month. I'm averaging about 4,000-5,000 words per night, but I don't write every day/night. We'll see. :)

Alright, I guess I should go back and work on it for a bit. :D OH!! If you're a Facebook bud, keep your peepers open because I'll be uploading pictures of places mentioned in the novel. Sort of a sneak peak thing without knowing anything about what happens at these locations. :D

That's it for now. I need to get some dinner in me and then spend the night writing. :D

As always, thanks for reading and God Bless!