We Are Pirates | BBRBF Book Club + Outfit

Welcome to this month's edition of BBRBF Book Club. Let the fanfare ensue!

This month we are reading "We Are Pirates" by Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket) and boy, do I have a feeling we're about to dive into some murky waters.

From GoodReads.com

A boat has gone missing. Goods have been stolen. There is blood in the water. It is the twenty-first century and a crew of pirates is terrorizing the San Francisco Bay.

Phil is a husband, a father, a struggling radio producer, and the owner of a large condo with a view of the water. But he’d like to be a rebel and a fortune hunter.

Gwen is his daughter. She’s fourteen. She’s a student, a swimmer, and a best friend. But she’d like to be an adventurer and an outlaw.

Phil teams up with his young, attractive assistant. They head for the open road, attending a conference to seal a deal.

Gwen teams up with a new, fierce friend and some restless souls. They head for the open sea, stealing a boat to hunt for treasure.

We Are Pirates is a novel about our desperate searches for happiness and freedom, about our wild journeys beyond the boundaries of our ordinary lives.

Also, it’s about a teenage girl who pulls together a ragtag crew to commit mayhem in the San Francisco Bay, while her hapless father tries to get her home.

The book begins with a flash forward to the end of our story and after the little trickery that is played with the reader in this first chapter, I had high hopes for the rest of the book. It was clear the author could write. His prose is dark and comical and reads almost like contemporary poetry - dealing out heavy meaning in the mundane. But, as the story unravels, and wow does it take forever to get there, there becomes a disconnect between the lyrical writing and the character development, plot, and heck, even the setting.

Gwen is a 14 year old girl being forced to visit Errol, an aging man with Alzheimer's and penchant for pirates, as a punishment for shoplifting. Gwen begins the story as an annoying and angst-y teen with a real grudge against her parents.

Phil Needle is her father. He's main mission through the book is to have his radio show picked up and produced. Phil Needle is also selfish, misogynistic, and annoying. Every bit of his story is just sour, serves no greater purpose to the (muddy) main themes, and could be entirely stricken from the book. At a point, it seems, that his entire purpose is to make the reader feel uncomfortable. Which he does. A lot. His hang up with his old receptionist who left because he wasn't "satisfying her needs" is just unpleasant. And not in a Walter White or Amy from Gone Girl kind of unpleasant that makes you feel hungry and guilty all at once. This is a kind of unpleasant that's similar to catching your grandparents doing it. Yeah. It's just something you do not need to know about. Ever.

After about 50% of the book is over, and you come to accept the book isn't actually about pirates, but a father-daughter tale of learning to understand each other, Gwen actually decides to become an actual pirate. In the San Francisco Bay. Yup. She employs her equally angst-y best friend, Errol, and two other tag-a-longs, who unbelievably jump on board to a life of crime with two young girls and a sick, old man with very little resistance.

From this point everything crumbles from vaguely uncomfortable and dull to utterly unbelievable and ridiculous. There is nothing evidenced in this book that could back up the actions taken by Gwen and her band of rascals and that pretty much blows the whole book. Well, that and Phil Needle and everything about him.

I was hoping a powerful ending could sweep in and save all this wonderful prose from the grips of a truly bad book, but, besides a few haunting and scenes with Phil Needle and Gwen accepting the depths of their consequences, it's pretty much the author taking the last few pages to cram the idea that people are emotional pirates pillaging happiness from each other in the readers face and our heroes learn nothing.

The author is just trying way too hard with this plot, not hard enough with his characters, and now we've got this weird, well-written, terrible book in our world to confuse readers for years to come. Hooray.

There's nothing masterfully inspired about this outfit except look how pretty! Frankly, I merely chose this dress for how perfect it looked next to the book cover. I just recently bought this dress off a BST and the seller described it as classy and autumnal as sh*t. Ad agencies need to take notes from this girl! I have never wanted to look more like wallpaper in my life and I promise you that this dress will be styled to death (which is not unlike being hacked a part by a meat cleaver) on this blog, but I wanted to debut it in its purest, autumnal AF form because it is perfection.

I did wear my pirate ship brooch though so some part of this outfit is swashbuckling! 

Be sure to check out all the other babes and their reviews of this dark comedy. Tallyho and what not!

Circle Skits & Petticoats

Dressed in Mascara

The Eyre Effect

In a Nutshell..,

The Miss Information Blog

Dress: BST Group (similar) | Shoes: Trifted (similar) | Brooch: Antique (similar) | Lips: Colourpop's Ultra Matte Liquid Lipstick in Chilly Chili (similar)

Retro Teal and Red | Picnic Pretties Mood Board

So, I had a weird weekend! We took an impromptu trip up to the island our family has rented land on for a couple of generations now. The whole island is strictly used for camping and the only things on it are ramshackle cabins and campers. Nobody is allowed to build there anymore so what's there is there and that's it. On our plot, we inherited a camper from the sixties or seventies, it's hard to tell because it is so weathered, and a kitchenette made of plywood and roofing materials. It even came with an old refrigerator from the fifties! I'm sure when it was new it was quite a cozy place but now it's more like the set of a Rob Zombie movie. I mean everything on this island is worn, battered, and patched up to see another day. Frankly, that's part of its charm though. At least for us.

The island seemed like a perfect place for my next Picnic Pretties Mood Board inspired outfit. You can see the whole mood board here on Pinterest. I didn't expect this series to be so reminiscent of my grandmother, but here I am again thinking about how my grandma spent so many of her summers camping on this island. This is her washing dishes 45 years ago on the same shore that I took these photos.

But here's where things get interesting. The second day, my grandpa wants to take the kids for a ride on the trailer. They love hanging out in the back while he putters around on his tractor and he loves it because he isn't very mobile anymore, but still loves playing with the kids. 

Well, on this particular day my mom and I are walking along behind so that nobody tries to jump ship and my kids began to beg us to ride with them. It's not the first time adults had been on it so we oblige. We start down a bumpy path and I shout to my mom that I feel like I'm falling and she chuckles back. 

Then all of a sudden the feeling heightens.  Now I really feel like I'm falling, I think. Then I'm upside down in the air. No, I'm actually falling. For a moment I think I have just been bounced out until I see my mom flying through the air above me. Oh, and I'm taking everyone else with me.

I hit the ground and blink my eyes open to see the trailer on it's side slowly driving away from us. Sawyer is sitting up next to me. Ok, he's fine.  Amelie is laying on the ground next to him screaming. Oh, god. My mom is on her back in the bushes. Where's Hudson? I get up and frantically start searching and discover him farther back into the bramble. Both him and my mom are laying there with their arms and legs sticking up into the air with the most startled expressions on their faces. I grab at Amelie and check her over. She appears to be all in one piece. My mom rolls over and starts pulling Hudson out of the woods. He appears to be fine, too. With shell-shocked expressions, we stand up and look towards my grandpa on the trailer, still obliviously driving away from us. He reaches the end of path and the trailer rights itself as he drives out of view. I turn toward my mom and all that comes out of my mouth is, "He's going to be so confused when he gets back to camp."

He does eventually come back for us and the look on his face is one of pure bewilderment. 

He stops the tractor and throws his hands up in air to ask us what's going on. My mom yells to him that we got thrown from the trailer and he says, in the most incredulous tone, "oh, come on!" And that was it. We lost it. Peals of laughter come pouring out of us and we can't stop. We laugh the entire walk back to the camp (because we are not getting back in that thing) and we laughed for hours after.

We laughed as we were still shaking from the shock and the fear. We laughed as our adrenaline came down and we started to feel every bump and bruise. We laughed as we discovered that none of the children had more than scratches and were only interested in playing minutes later.

We took turns telling our version of the story and laughed at the reenactments of our faces and how the only way to describe the position that I found my mom and Hudson in was "turtling."

Never in my life has an incident of such pure fear turned into something so hilarious. We are so lucky to have come out of that event relatively unscathed. Both my mom and I are incredibly sore this week but I'll take that over a broken neck or a bashed in head any day! I am so awfully glad that we got a good story and not a trip to hospital out of this!

Skirt: Handmade by me (similar) | Shirt: Torrid (similar in straight sizes, similar in plus) | Shoes: Modcloth | Scarf: Thrifted (similar) | Lips: MAC Viva Glam II 

Red Gingham | Picnic Pretties Mood Board

I'm going to be honest...These photos are heavily inspired by this blog post from Noelle's Favorite Things. It just so happens that her photos were exactly what I envisioned when I bought the Sprecher's Cherry-Cran soda for an old-fashioned soda-pop theme. Summer days are made for grabbing a cold, bubbly drink, a stack of books, and heading out to kick back in the grass for a while. You can also see my entire Picnic Pretties Mood Board here on Pinterest.

 

And yes, my daughter and I do having matching red gingham rompers because I'm obsessed with her and I'm also ridiculous. But, c'mon! Look at the cuteness! If anyone else is as ridiculous as me and happens to have an adorable daughter that you enjoy twinning with, definitely check out Old Navy because they often use the same prints across all their clothing sizes, which makes twinning with a toddler easy peasy lemon squeezey.

The styling was pretty easy, as well. Matching red lip, straw hat, complementary yellow shoes, and you've got the perfect outfit to chill out in on a hot, summer day. 

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Romper: Old Navy (similar in straight sizes, similar in plus) | Hat: Thrifted (similar) | Shoes: Modcloth (similar) | Lips: M.A.C. lipstick in So Chaud

Life After Life | BBRBF Book Club + Outfit

What a book. What a colossal book Life After Life by Kate Atkinson was.

Synopsis from the book cover: On a cold and snowy night in 1910, Ursula Todd is born, the third child of a wealthy English banker and his wife. She dies before she can draw her first breath. On that same cold and snowy night, Ursula Todd is born, lets out a lusty wail, and embarks upon a life that will be, to say the least, unusual. For as she grows, she also dies, repeatedly, in any number of ways. Ursula's world is in turmoil, facing the unspeakable evil of the two greatest wars in history. What power and force can one woman exert over the fate of civilization -- if only she has the chance?

I chose this book for the curious plot that was set at the beginning of the 20th century and because it came very highly recommended by a lot of people. This massive book was quite the undertaking. Not only was it long but it was a slow read. There were parts of this book that were like trudging through sand. The book covers decades from the Edwardian era all the way through to the Postwar era. Despite the exciting times that this existed in, there were moments that were just plain mundane and tedious. Moments that I wanted to abandon the book and not come back to it.

That being said, I do not think this was a bad book at all. One could easily hack out half the book and still have a wonderful story because when it got good it was good. As Ursula is living her lives and ultimately coming to tragic ends again and again it was like reading in an ocean tide. The story would come to these great surges of well written excitement and tragedy only to come crashing down and start over with the trudging...again...and again. The life where Ursula was married to an abusive man was so painfully real and terrifying and her time in the Air Raid Precautions Department during the London Blitz was breathtakingly tragic. But, then we'd get plunked right back into Fox's Corner to start again. Which, while I didn't find that enjoyable, might just be the experience that the author wanted us to have to immerse us into Ursula's cyclic existence. By the end of this book I felt confounded and exhausted and I have a sense that is exactly what Kate Atkinson wanted.

 And can we please talk about the end?! I don't even know what to do with that ending. Is Ursula stuck forever being reborn no matter what she does? And there were some serious allusions to Sylvie and Teddy having the same affliction. Is everyone living and dying again? Just some? Were the random scenes written from other character's perspectives, speckled through out the book and then shot at us rapid fire at the end, supposed evidence that others are living like this too and Ursula's isn't the only perspective in this circular universe? What was the significance of Roland? Why was the midwife, who had no bearing in the story at all, the last character we see? That's purposeful! But, for the life of me I don't understand the purpose. If you've read the book, I would love to know what you took away from all of this.

On a scale of Total Pile to Masterpiece, I'd give this book a Glad I Read It, But I'm Also Glad It's Over.

I had no clue what I was going to wear for this book until this gorgeous dress stumbled into my life just days before the review was due. Goodwill delivers again! Not only were the colors and print perfect, but the sweetheart neckline reminded me of 1930's glamour and I played that up with the red lips and flowing hair. I imagine this was somewhat of Ursula's look in the opening scene of the book when she is described as looking like a movie star.