Right around my birthday, Amazon sent me a profoundly ridiculous book suggestion:
Reader, I bought it.
The book itself was completely unexpected. I honestly thought I was buying a comic book (ahem, graphic novel), but it’s not. I would have had no idea how to describe it, but the first review labels it “Isekai” (along with a five-star rating), which wikipedia says is: “Isekai (Japanese: 異世界, transl. “different world” or “otherworld”) is a genre of light novels, manga, anime and video games that revolve around a person who is transported to and has to survive in another world, such as a fantasy world, virtual world or parallel universe.”
In fact, the even more narrow genre is “isakei tensei,” where the main character is reincarnated into another world. In our heroine’s previous life, she was an office worker in Japan who liked to cook, but in her current life, she’s first engaged to a king and then married to one in a sort of temporary platonic arrangement.
It’s pure fluff. The great drama is that the heroine is going to bake a chiffon cake for the king for his birthday, but her nemesis has stolen the recipe and is going to make the same thing. Not quite a fairy tale, because completely modern in sensibility, but still somehow reminiscent of a children’s cartoon. (The book is labeled as Teen/YA and, in fact, is currently #1 in the category Teen and Young Adult Cooking & Food Ebooks. I bet you never ran into that category on Amazon before! ) I read it outside, in about an hour, chuckling aloud every now and then, and when Suzanne got home, I read lines aloud to her.
Example:
The wolf was so beautiful and majestic and yet, I knew almost nothing about him.
One thing I did know was that the bottom of his paws sported little black pads. They were smooth, without any large cracks in the skin, and stood out against his silver fur. I desperately wanted to give them a good squish.
“Paw pads are the work of the gods…”
I scrunched my fingers, imagining squishing those little pads.
since I was abandoned, etc.
So why buy what I thought was a comic book?
Because of the absolutely irresistible tag line: “Fluffy Friends, Good Food, And Freedom, What More Does A Girl Need?!” It has become my new mantra. In fact, I’ve written it down on one of the chalkboards hanging above my window, the ones that are supposed to be providing me with writing encouragement. I’m not sure I’d exactly call this writing encouragement, but it’s excellent life encouragement.
Fluffy friends, good food, freedom. Ingredients for a satisfying life!
Meanwhile, in the two months that I didn’t blog — okay, almost three — WordPress did some kind of crazy update and I can no longer figure out how to write or create links or add images… it is SO ANNOYING. And I feel like a Luddite, complaining about the speed of change, but seriously, why do I have to learn a new interface for something as straightforward as writing? WHY?
Good to see you back again..sorry about Word Press…the same thing happened to me on blogspot.com. Years and years appear to be stuck in time. Makes me sad. I hope you can figure you’re out. I’m stumped. I hope all is well otherwise!
I’m definitely going to figure it out, it’s just annoying. For some reason, they’ve hidden all the controls. And switching to “classic” completely messes up my screen. There’s also some weird log-in thing — but it’s all gonna be fine. It’ll be good for me to figure out some new tech — work my brain!
I’m right there with you except it changed overnight for me and it made me think I was doing something wrong that caused the change. After two trips to the hospital in less than 2 weeks, Fluffy friends, good food and freedom sounds wonderful.
I’m sorry to hear about the second trip to the hospital! I hope things get figured out for you — that must be so scary.