Revenge Wears Prada

Almost a decade has passed since Andy Sachs quit the job a million girls would die for, working for Miranda Priestly at Runway magazine. A dream that turned out to be a nightmare. Andy and Emily, her former nemesis and co-assistant, have since joined forces to start a high end bridal magazine, The Plunge, which has quickly become required reading for the young and stylish. Now they get to call all the shots: Andy writes and travels to her heart's content; Emily plans parties and secures advertising like a seasoned pro. Even better, Andy has met the love of her life. Max Harrison, scion of a storied media family, is confident, successful, and drop-dead gorgeous. Their wedding will be splashed across all the society pages as their friends and family gather to toast the glowing couple. Andy Sachs is on top of the world. But karma's a bitch. The morning of her wedding, Andy can't shake the past. And when she discovers a secret letter with crushing implications, her wedding-day jitters turn to cold dread. Andy realizes that nothing; not her husband, nor her beloved career is as it seems. She never suspected that her efforts to build a bright new life would lead her back to the darkness she barely escaped ten years ago and directly into the path of the devil herself...Featuring all new scenes with the villainess we love to hate (hate to love?), Miranda Priestly, Revenge Wears Prada in paperback is another publishing event!

I am a total sucker for a sequel. I really love them. For the most part it doesn't even matter if they are well reviewed or even remotely as good as the first. I still want to read them. Novels are generally just a glimpse of a portion person's life, so frankly there is almost always room for a sequel. Heck, if there was a sequel to Harry Potter just written about, I dunno, his job as a lackey at the Ministry of Magic because he's waiting for an Auror position to open up, I would totally read that. Yes, it wouldn't be as good as the actual series that is filled with Voldemort and stuff, but I like the idea of what happens AFTER everything happens. I love epilogues too for this exact reason. Unless everyone in the book dies, there is room for a sequel technically. That being said, I have also skipped on sequels because the first book worked SO well as a stand alone that I figured I didn't need to read anymore. The Hunger Games was one of those books before I decided to give the next two books a go, and I wasn't disappointed, whereas I can't bring myself to read any more of the Ender Books, Ender's Game was just so good alone I was worried that sequels would ruin it, but I think that's a thing about the Sci Fi and Fantasy genres. It's easy to ruin the magic sometimes...

Ok, so after that slight tangent... Revenge Wears Prada was pretty ok. Not NEARLY as good as the original, but it was a cute follow up. It wasn't really reviewed well on GoodReads, so I didn't have high hopes, but I wasn't disappointed. The great thing about these books is that I read the first one when I was in my early 20s, just like Andy. And now this one Andy is in her early 30s and so am I. I LOVE when that happens because everything is so relatable, and I can think about what I would do the same or differently and not have to worry about the "well, I wouldn't do that, but I'm not in my 20s anymore, so maybe I'm just old" or the "What person in their right mind would do that? But that person is in an entirely different life stage/generation from me so who am I to judge?" None of that! Because this IS my life stage. This IS my generation! So I can judge all I want. 

There were a few little things that bothered me a bit. One thing was I found the title really misleading. "Revenge" implies a plot with a callous intent. Not just a person who is unconcerned with other people and never has been, and thus has not changed and continues to treat people this way. There was no "revenge" in this novel, it was just that Andy, Emily, and Miranda's paths cross again in business and it isn't a friendly and positive encounter. Miranda continues to be Miranda and that causes Andy some anxiety.

Another thing that irked me more than it should have is when, at one part, they are discussing going for Brunch at 12:30.... THAT ISN'T BRUNCH THEN! The whole point of calling something BRUNCH is that it is between [Br]eakfast and L[unch] and you combine those lovely meals to make Br-unch. 12:30 is just plain old lunch. Stop trying to make it fancy.

I gave this book a 3/5 rating on GoodReads, it would have been a 3.5 if they offered half stars. It was one of those books where I wobbled back and forth between "OK" and "Good". I think had the ending been better it would have bumped it up to a 4, but the ending was pretty blah. So read this one if you have read the original and you like sequels like I do. But if you aren't interested in the first, don't read it in order to read this one. Just pass on 'em both.

Currently Reading, Library Ebooks, and a Recovery Update

I am absolutely KILLING my GoodReads Reading Challenge right now. I am 4 books ahead of schedule according to the website, and that is amazing. I never would have thought I would have been able to keep up so well. I think back in February things were so crazy that I couldn't imagine having much time to read so I sold myself a little short. It's like the "light at the end of the tunnel" analogy. Back in February I had just entered the tunnel and it was so dark I couldn't imagine the light at the end, but it's starting to show up now. I'm not even close to the amount I had read back before Dom was born, but I'm getting better than I would have expected. Granted, I have read a couple of Young Adult books recently, but that just means that I won't read any other ones for a while. And there's still that business with the novellas... but whatever. I think I'm doing well enough that I won't have to actually count them towards my reading goal for the year. Let's hope I continue to be on the upswing!

I really do have Dominic's hospital time to thank for the time I've had to read. Every day that Dom was in the hospital I was there from about 8am until 9pm, with the one puking episode day that I was there until after midnight. I was there to be there for him at the moment he needed me, but after going through surgery he did sleep a lot more than usual, and with him being my primary concern, much of the time he was sleeping, I was just reading right next to him. So I'd say it was about a ratio of 2:1 when he was sleeping and I was reading to when he was awake and I was feeding or cuddling or doing whatever it was he needed. It's interesting how different it was from the Stollery, where I thought I would have oodles of time to read and actually had none. In hindsight, I think that was because of the unit Dom was mostly in there. In the Cardio ICU, nursing staff is 1:1, so I figured I would have more time away from the hospital because I knew Dom would be in good hands, but in reality, I would go back to the hotel only to sleep and shower in fear of something happening when I wasn't there, and whenever I couldn't be there for whatever reason, I would want to just lie down and watch trashy television in order to not use my overfilled brain at all.

~*~

Anyone that pays attention to my GoodReads account (which, granted, is probably no one) may have noticed that I added Revenge Wears Prada, then later To All The Boys I've Loved Before, but then finished the latter before the former, which is very out of character for me. And it all boils down to ebooks...

I can't remember if I've posted about this before, so forgive me if this is old news, but my primary source of reading material for my Ereader is the library. I have difficulty paying for books that I can't put on my shelf and show off to people. And prior to getting my ereader, I even struggled with reading books that I didn't own to put on my shelf (as if I was made of money, HA!), but I have really embraced ebooks and love the fact that I can borrow them from the library. It's an interesting system because the books actually do expire and then they just disappear off of your ereader (although I've figured out a way around that if I need an extra few days. All you have to do is change the date on your ereader a few days back and then the book reappears! TA-DA!). So I have to be careful about what I borrow when, because if I borrow a large book and have no time to read it, I won't finish. I can always cheat the system and keep it longer, but I am willing to do it for a couple of days but not a longer time than that.

Coming back to why I stopped reading one book in order to read another was that Revenge Wears Prada was an actual Trade paper book and TATBILB was an ebook. I had put TATBILB on hold but it was available sooner than I had expected, about 2 days before Dom's surgery. So I borrowed it figuring I might have an opportunity to read at the hospital, but didn't want to jeopardize my actual copy of Revenge Wears Prada. Another advantage to Ereaders: not having to worry about dogeared pages, scratched covers, or water damage. So yes, I have fully embraced my ereader. And the Library. Who would have thought?

~*~

Now for what you are all actually here for (at least if my visitor count is any indication): and update on my little man.

Dom has been home for just 12 hours shy of a week and everything is going swimmingly. We are pretty much back into our old routine with a couple mild adjustments. I am still getting used to the g button being on his tummy, and I am so worried about it getting caught on something and pulling out that Dominic hasn't really been doing tummy time or going in his jolly jumper at all. We tried tummy time once but he seemed even more uncomfortable than before (or perhaps he was just mad because he didn't want to do it and I hadn't made him in a while) so I put a quick stop to that. We'll reevaluate next week when his usual respite nurse is here and see what she thinks. I'm thinking about trying the jolly jumper again, but with an extra hand towel or something to cushion the g button, but I haven't quite gotten up the guts to try it yet.

The biggest thing we're working on right now is getting his oral feeds up to where they were before. He is still getting used to his new mouth and we are trying to wean a bit of his tylenol, so it's possible that me might be a little more uncomfortable, and that is the reason for him not being at where he was before. He's eating about half as much as he was before he had his surgery, which is still improving every day, and I'm sure in short order he will be back to where he was. Hopefully even better! Considering his lip is another step to being to eat like everyone else, and nurses have said that getting a g button helps because it's less uncomfortable than having a tube down their throat like with an ng tube... but we'll see!

Thanks for being cheerleaders for my wee lad!

To All The Boys I've Loved Before

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before is the story of Lara Jean, who has never openly admitted her crushes, but instead wrote each boy a letter about how she felt, sealed it, and hid it in a box under her bed. But one day Lara Jean discovers that somehow her secret box of letters has been mailed, causing all her crushes from her past to confront her about the letters: her first kiss, the boy from summer camp, even her sister's ex-boyfriend, Josh. As she learns to deal with her past loves face to face, Lara Jean discovers that something good may come out of these letters after all.

It really is exactly as cheesy as it sounds. But it was fun, cute, and I enjoyed it. This is exactly like something I would have read in high school, but never admitted to. 'Cuz, ya know, being a book nerd wasn't bad enough, but reading girly teenage chick lit would have been a bit worse... and I had so much street cred to protect. [/sarcasm]

I really enjoyed this one because it seems like something that really could have legitimately happened. A girl, writing letters to the boys she had a crush on, in order to get over these crushes seems like a positive and realistic way of getting on with her life. I have heard of writing exercises involving getting rid of negativity by writing down a bunch of negative things that you dwell on only to burn them or tear them up or something. The only thing I think is silly is actually addressing the envelopes. Who would do that? But, ya know, plot device.

I think that this book's intended audience is teenage girls that aren't really big readers, but like Rom Coms. It was an easy, enjoyable read that I think many teenage girls would at least get a kick out of. Fun. Simple. Real. Why the heck not? I fully intend on eventually reading the sequel that comes out at the end of this month.

Interesting little side note: One of the storylines in this book is when Lara Jean fake-dates one of the guys that her letters got mailed to, and I could totally relate to it in my slightly after highschool life. Like, in what universe is it a good idea to fake-date someone? In my case it was just dumb, and in hindsight, I think it was just because I wanted to date the guy (who happened to be my best friend), but was too chicken to ask. So when people would repeatedly ask if we were going out, I was all like 'Why don't we just pretend that we are? That would be hilarious!', but really, who would find that funny except ourselves... and then we ended up dating anyway... so that joke was on who really?

Ahhh, teenage life....

Dominic's New Face

Anyone who is facebook friends with me may already know that Dominic did in fact come home from the hospital on Friday. Not in the morning, mind you, but still on Friday. Sorry for the delay, but anyone that has been in the hospital for any length of time can at least understand that I just needed to take some time for me and my family once we were all back together again. I was happy he was home, glad for the great care he had while in hospital, but I was drained. So I postponed this post for a couple of days.

After Dominic puked that couple times on Thursday night, his nurses and I started talking about different reasons that it could have happened, not related to the g-button, that would not keep him in hospital. The three most hopeful and likely were that 1) he was coming off of his anesthetic and every person that goes through surgery with anesthetic is prescribed some kind of med while in hospital to chillax their stomachs. Dominic is no exception and had this given to him, which implies that the doctors at least slightly expected for him to get a bit sick. 2) He was going in to morphine withdrawal.  He had gotten a few hits of morphine for pain relief after his surgery. Not high doses or anything, but just the fact that he had been on morphine for SO long a few months back may have made him instantly dependent on it again. He was doing a bit of lip smacking and tongue sticking out, but that also could have just been him getting used to the feel of his new mouth. And my personal favourite 3) He hadn't pooped since the day before his surgery and he was so bunged up that he was trying to poop but it popped out the top rather than his bottom. We were trying to feed him, but there was no place for it to go. The poop is my favourite reason because shortly after puking, he had two BIG poops, and although we still waited to feed him a couple of hours, it wasn't a problem after that. The following morning, his new nurse told me that the plan was still to release him that day as long as the next two feeds (9am and 1pm) went fine. And they did. So Wahoo!! We are home!!

So meet Dominic with his new face!

It's really cool to see how they used the parts of his lips and mouth that were there to create his new lip. So, yes, his nub is still kinda there, but from a distance you wouldn't necessarily know, it kinda just looks like he had a bloody nose, and when he's all healed up I bet at first glance you wouldn't even notice.

He is back to his usual self now that we are home and he giggles and smiles, but the top part of his mouth, were his lip repair happened, does not move yet when he smiles and laughs. So he smiles with his eyes and his bottom lip, which is really cute, but makes him seem a little flat. I'm sure once the swelling goes down that will change and he will have a more normal smile, and normal control over his face, but I am just happy to see him smiling and giggling again. He has the arm bar thingies to keep him from putting his hands or anything in his mouth, because that may cause the stitching to tear (so he's not allowed his soother either), but he seems to be adjusting to these well. He just finds things to do other than suck on stuff... like playing with his toes. That's fun!

So we are back into the routine of being at home, but I have no intention of taking him anywhere that is not absolutely necessary, because putting Dom in a carseat right now is a huge process and a pain because of those arm bars. So come visit us if you are interested! Because I won't be coming to you for at least 2 weeks! ;)

Post Surgery: Day 2

It's crazy how fast things can change for the worse while in the hospital. And it's never for the better. It always takes a long time for things to progressively get better, but it only takes an instant for things to be perfectly fine and planning to go home tomorrow, to probably staying an extra night.

Everything was going swimmingly today. Dom was more awake, less uncomfortable, we were standing him up and cuddling a bit, compared to yesterday where he barely tolerated being touched. The surgeon that did his g button came in and saw him and he said as long as he tolerated all of his feeds he could go home tomorrow morning. 

We were told at about 6:30 that he would be moving out of the observation rooms and into a regular one (same one he was in back in sept/oct, although a different bed), which was fine. I figured it was only one night, so he'd be fine. They moved him about 8:30, and we popped him to his new bed, pulled him into the chair to see if he would eat (he didn't) before just putting his food through his new g button, but as soon as we had him back in his bed to settle, he puked. And he puked BIG. Before even any food had gone through his tube. Without knowing why it happened, we tried feeding him his feed anyway only to have him puke big again once the food had just gotten to his belly. Ugh.

So this will probably keep him in hospital at least another night. Not that anyone has told us that yet, but if that was the condition the surgeon put forward and Dominic didn't meet that requirement, I feel it's a pretty safe bet. 

When it comes to hospitals, I'm becoming one of those people that just assumes the worst. I'm hoping I'm wrong and there is a reasonable explanation as to why he puked that doesn't effect us going home. But I'll talk to the doctor tomorrow and see what he says.

Wish me luck!

My Strong Little Soldier

Dominic's surgery went really well today. No complications. Only one little surprise. 

Dominic didn't get his ear tubes. My understanding is that Dominic's ears look normal on the outside, but are fancy on the inside. So the ENT doctor said that tubing his ears wouldn't fix his fluid build up problem. He's getting referred to have an appointment post op to check his hearing after his recovery, but I'm not really sure what that means. He's already had two hearing tests and due to his build up they couldn't read anything on him, so is there a different test they are going to try or are they going to continually beat the same dead horse until they can read something? We'll have to see.

Post Op, In the recovery room

As far as his lip goes, it looks ok. Very swollen, but I'm sure that will abate in the next few days. It's still not perfect (obviously) and the Plastic Surgeon said it generally takes quite a few surgeries to fix the lip and palate over many years, but I'm glad this first step is done.

His g button is in. He had his first feed with it tonight at 9:00. It wasn't a full feed, or a formula feed for that matter. It was a 30ml pedialite feed. But he tolerated it well and I think it helped ease his discomfort. After not eating for 21 hours, I'm sure it felt nice to have something in his belly.

Overall, he's in a bit of pain, I'm not sure if it's his belly or face (or both), but after a few hours without pain meds he's pretty miserable. I don't blame him. So he's on a few pain meds that will hopefully keep him comfortable.

We'll see what tomorrow brings! Thank you all for the well wishes, prayers, good vibes! It makes all of this easier when I know we have people in our corner!

T-12 hours to Surgery

Tomorrow at 8am, Dominic will be having his Cleft Lip, G-Button, and Ear Tube surgery.

It is a weird mix of emotions I am going through right now. He needs this surgery. I have been anxiously awaiting this surgery to fix his lip, but at the same time I feel I am going to miss his cleft. It is the face I have known since he was born. I love his little gappy smile. But I know that eating will get easier, he will drool less, his speech development will improve. But I am still sitting here crying as I write this because my little boy's face is about to change. I don't want him to have the social difficulties coupled with having a facial deformity, but at the same time I have come to love him with this face. As I look back at his pictures from when he was less than a month old, I see how far his cleft has come. When I was taping it to help with lining it up for this surgery and his palate one, I was already changing his face. But since I quit doing that, his face has become the one I know. The one of my baby. The one that is getting surgically altered tomorrow.

As a tribute to the cleft I was initially (and frankly, still) sensitive about people seeing, here are a few of my favourites. It seems silly to be sensitive about this face that I have come to love when it is about to be "fixed" tomorrow...

*CAUTION: Some of the following pictures are from when Dominic was in ICU, So he has tubes coming out of him and sometimes doesn't look the healthiest. Be warned! If you are sensitive to such pictures, perhaps these are not for you*

On his birthday. Shortly after this he needed a breathing mask and you could no longer see his cleft.
At least in this one, the soother shows it a bit.

The day after his first Heart surgery, the first time he woke up after.
This one you can really see how far his cleft stuck out. It goes past his nose significantly.

After taping for a little while, you can see how much closer his lip is to his face. 

The big grin I am going to miss.

Last day with an Ng tube and a Cleft Lip

To be honest I am still a little bit torn about his G-button. I really shouldn't be, it will only make things better for Dominic with his eating. Without the tube taped on his face we won't have to worry about his skin irritation, I have been told by several doctors that not having the tube on their face gives them less of an aversion to eating, and if he stops using it within 6 months it's not even a surgery to close it up. But I still have this worry about giving him the g-button. It feels like I am giving up on his ability to eat all by himself. I wonder if I'm just doing something wrong when I am feeding him that makes him not eat effectively and it results in him getting too frustrated or tired. I wonder if I just let him demand feed 15 times a day rather than the 6 scheduled feeds if he would do just fine then. I just wonder... It is also possible that getting his cleft lip will help him get better with eating and thus help us get closer to getting rid of the button. Funny how I am already hoping to get rid of it before he's even gotten it yet. It would just kinda suck to give him the button to barely have to use it, but I supposed it's better to get it and not need it than to not get it and then need to get him one later when it's a whole additional surgery.

And then there are the ear tubes. He needs those, so that's fine. No qualms with him getting those. It's actually a plus to get them while he is under for another procedure. Fewer times they have to put him out with anesthetic then. Easiest surgery ever. I wouldn't have even be opposed if he had to get them separately.

So there we have it. Think of us tomorrow morning if you are up that early! I will probably be a wreck!

Tom's Midnight Garden

When Tom is sent to stay at his aunt and uncle's house for the summer, he resigns himself to endless weeks of boredom. As he lies awake in his bed he hears the grandfather clock downstairs strike . . .

eleven . . . twelve . . . thirteen . . . 

Thirteen! Tom races down the stairs and out the back door, into a garden everyone told him wasn't there.

In this enchanted thirteenth hour, the garden comes alive - but Tom is never sure whether the children he meets there are real or ghosts . . . 

This entrancing and magical story is one of the best-loved children's books ever written.


This book comes with a bit of history for me, so bear with me. I've got a bit of a story before I get to the review.

Back in elementary school, I can't be sure of which grade, I remember watching a movie about a boy that goes to a garden at night time that doesn't exist in the daytime. I remember being skeptical of the movie at the start, because so many movies that our teachers picked were so lame (but in hindsight, I would probably love them now), but quite  liking it by the end. And all I really remembered was a boy, opening a door to a garden at night, and during the day that same door opened to an alley, he played with a little girl in that garden, and what happened at the end (and I'm not gunna say that part ;) ). That was it. It occurred to me later that this story may have been a book as well, but with no clue of the title, and only a few vague plot points, I wasn't able to find it back when I worked at Coles, our searching system wasn't that sophisticated at the time. Titles, authors, ISBNs, and sometimes topics were all you could search books by. When I worked at McNally, I tried to ask Kids Department staff, but whenever I mentioned a magical garden they would immediately figure I meant The Secret Garden, which is about a girl rather than a boy... Anywhoo, thanks to the powers of the internet, I was able to discover that it was the book was Tom's Midnight Garden and I am relatively certain that the film we watched was actually the BBC miniseries of the same name that was made in 1989.

The book lived up to all of my expectations. From what I remember of the film I had watched, it was an extremely good adaptation of the book and thus was exactly what I was hoping it would be. Being that I still remembered the shocker of an ending, the book was kinda spoiled for me. I found myself eagerly awaiting the parts that I remember rather than taking in parts that I didn't. This is a really fun children's book, so if you are looking for a chapter book to read to your kids night after night, or can just appreciate a good children's book I would totally recommend this one. It didn't take me long to read, and I really don't have much time on my hands (yay for reading on my phone while feeding Dominic!), so it's not so much of a commitment if you only have bits and pieces of time. One fault that some people may find (but I don't) is that being that this is a classic book, written back in 1958, the style of writing and reading has changed. So if you find that you don't particularly like Classic Novels like that, this may not be for you.

And if anyone knows where I can get a copy of the BBC miniseries let me know! I would love to watch it again after all of these years! 

Thirty Girls

Esther is a Ugandan teenager abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army and forced to witness and commit unspeakable atrocities, who is struggling to survive, to escape, and to find a way to live with what she has seen and done. Jane is an American journalist who has traveled to Africa, hoping to give a voice to children like Esther and to find her center after a series of failed relationships. In unflinching prose, Minot interweaves their stories, giving us razor-sharp portraits of two extraordinary young women confronting displacement, heartbreak, and the struggle to wrest meaning from events that test them both in unimaginable ways.  

With mesmerizing emotional intensity and stunning evocations of Africa's beauty and its horror, Minot gives us her most brilliant and ambitious novel yet.

I'm not sure when or where I heard about this book, but I have a list of books on my phone that I have come across one way or another and figured I should read, and this one was on there. My guess is it came out around the time that the “Bring Back Our Girls” campaign was on, but I have no evidence of that. Anywhoo, it was available online from the library, so I figured “why not? It's on the list!”. So I popped it onto my ereader and away I went.

So after reading Wonder, I really wanted to read something a bit heavier to really get back into the swing of reading what I used to read. But it didn't go as well as I had planned. This book took me over a month to read (Yikes!), and it's not because it wasn't good or that I wasn't interested, it was just really heavy and I don't have a lot of time to read.

This book gets a big, solid “OK” from me. It wasn't fabulous, but it wasn't too bad either. It was good insofar as it was an entertaining story, with parallels between 1^st world and 3^rd world countries that I found interesting, however, it just really wasn't what I expected. What I really expected was a book about Esther, with some Jane chapters thrown in for perspective on the basis of our North American separation from the actual issue, being that the author, and likely most of her audience, would be from North America. I figured Jane's chapters would just provide some clarification for understanding Esther's plight. But it was disappointing that Jane's chapters really took over most of the book. Her petty 1^st world problems shadowed Esther's real scary, 3^rd world, supposedly-primary-topic-of-the-novel problems. Perhaps this is because the author was American, perhaps she was basing it on her own experiences and thus related more to Jane than Esther? I don't know, but to me it really didn't quite cut it in that respect.

Although I found this book on the heavy side, topic wise, I really didn't think it went far enough. It glosses over many horrid things to the point of seeming that the limited amount of press the LRA gets is overblown and exaggerated, whereas in actuality it probably isn't bad enough. Esther witnessed some pretty horrible things while a captive with the LRA, but from what I have heard of other's experiences, it was probably far worse than Minot chose to portray. She also seemed to skim over a lot of the more awful experiences by having Esther go through an out of body experience or something, which to me, lost a lot of momentum with the story and also seemed like sort of a cop-out. Like the Alice and Wonderland "She woke up and it was all a dream" scenarios. To compare this to another novel where this was done well, Khaled Hosseni's the Kite Runner was so traumatizing in it's rendering of life in Afghanastan that I may have had a case of PTSD after reading it. One might argue that Minot being a White American could not understand or depict life as an African Girl stolen from her family and made to serve a rebel force, but I feel if you can't do something properly, don't do it at all.

One of the highlights of the book for me came in the form of a short statement taking place as a dinner conversation "Wild dogs are a lot cooler than people realize. Like all dogs, they are submission-based species, but it's not to do with sex. Females rule some packs, males rule others. The packs hunt for food together and never fight over it, even when they're starving. When they want food, they beg for it from each other. They don't fight." I found this so interesting that I googled and fact checked it and it is indeed true. I think the Painted Dogs of Africa may have overtaken Lions as my favourite African animal. So there ya go! You're new thing you learned today ;)

I wouldn't dissuade anyone from reading Thirty Girls, but I would also have trouble recommending it considering I don't think it serves the topic justice. However if you are interested in the stories of stolen girls in Uganda, or the LRA, and you want to get a glimpse of what it may be like without resulting in PTSD, perhaps this book is for you.