October 2018 – Pretend adult here

This month for the Goodreads group we are recommending books that are… witchy. Now especially in books it’s hard to define what makes a book witchy it could be anything from Harry Potter to the Crucible.

Toil & Trouble: 15 Tales of Women & Witchcraft – I was super lucky to get to pick up this new anthology from my library. It was about witchcraft but focused much more on feminism, independence, forging ones own path in all variations of witchery. My favorite of these stories: The One Who Stayed by Nova Ren Suma, Divine are the Stars by Zoraida Cordova, and Why They Watch Us Burn by Elizabeth May.

The Witchlands series by Susan Dennard – This is a fantasy series but the magic is witchy enough for me to justify putting one of my favorite series on this list. The magic is derived from 6 natural wells of magic and have nature as their base. All those with powers are required to have prominent witchmarks. It’s a story of female friendship saving the world and if that doesn’t sound witchy fight me.

The School for Good and Evil by Soman Chainani – Though both Agatha and Sophie have magical powers. Hester, Anadil, and Dot are probably one of the best covens of all time is in this middle grade trilogy. Their fantastical prowess is a perfect fit for the school of evil. Not to mention this is just one of my favorite series of all time.

The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare – This more a type reminiscent of the Salem Witch Trials set in 17th century New England. Kit doesn’t feel like she fits in until she meets the town witch…

The Hawkweed Prophecy by Irena Brignull – This is an occult magical realism novel that follows a witch prophecy as two babies are born. It’s beautiful and spooky the witch culture and coven is exactly what one wants this time of year. Highly recommend for witch fans of Laini Taylor.

So recently a friend of mine tweeted that he hated when people bragged about being able to drop people. They held it akin to not being able to communicate or maintain relationships. This made me frustrated and angry. However, knowing the person I also know that if I said that I needed to drop someone he would be super agreeable and supportive.

For me dropping people is a feat of social endurance. It is infinitely easier to stay friends with someone to keep a crappy person in your life than to take the step to remove them from your life. It is not a lack of social skills but in fact a leveling up. For so long we just fall into habits of expecting so little from the people in your life. I remember when I started hanging out with a group of friends my sophomore year of college I found one of them to be kind of abrasive and selfish. When I brought it up they just all went “Oh that’s how he is” or “oh that’s how he’s always been you can’t expect him to change now.”

These mentalities to keeping friends is detrimental to someone’s social and emotional well being. Thinking you don’t deserve to be treated well or that you should have friends that aren’t good wears on a person. A friend is one of the only connections a person truly gets to choose. You don’t pick your family or your neighbors or co-workers. If you don’t say this is not what I want than you are settling.

So yes a friend break up suck and it sucks that those connections don’t always work out. But it’s far better to be able to drop someone than to be stuck in a situation where you feel that you owe your friendship even if it’s not the friendship you want,

Month: October 2018

Monthly Recommendations: Witch-y Reads

In Defense of Dropping People