Lady Bibliophile--a SAHD does book reviews

[GeoBQn]

She makes it sound like taking the CLEP tests was an experience worthy of flowery prose and lengthy descriptions. They are not. All standardized tests are the same--wake up early, go to location, take test, breathe sigh of relief, treat self with nap or dessert.

[bionicmlle]

She makes it sound like taking the CLEP tests was an experience worthy of flowery prose and lengthy descriptions. They are not. All standardized tests are the same--wake up early, go to location, take test, breathe sigh of relief, treat self with nap or dessert.

Or beer and wings at Hooters.

[formergothardite]

"I had no desire to take the traditional college route, for accumulating thousands of dollars in debt and spending years in a less-than-ideal environment were not particularly attractive."

Oh my. I blame her parents for never teaching her. At least Raquel can usually put together a sentence that makes sense. I wonder if she was never taught to proofread and so she doesn't catch these things.

[Becoming_Me]

I got a comrade who's never read the Bible. I regularly shock her with Biblical quotes. She usually can't believe me that some of this stuff is actually in the Bible at all.

She says "But they call this the Good Book! They wouldn't say that if they knew!"

Our family read through the KJV Bible together twice a year. Us kids never picked up on the sexual stuff because it is obscured to some extent by the old English. We just wanted to get the reading done for the day so we didn't really think about what we were reading.

Then, when we got older it became super awkward to read through the Song of Solomon and stories of women being raped all night and then cut in 12 pieces. Our parent never seemed to notice the looks we would give each other or the smiles or grimaces we tried to suppress.

[Hane]

*ahem* Tech writer and former English teacher puts on her bifocals re the CLEP quotations above--

No, these passages are indeed grammatically correct. They are also long, clumsy, and overblown, as if this kid has been taught that fraught and flowery language is somehow Way Classier than simple and to-the-point English.

[sparkles]

Here's what I get from glancing at her blog: words words words words words words words words words words more words (because why use ten when 100 will do?) words words words words words .

And in the end, what it all amounts to is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. (Do fundies read Shakespeare?)

I really feel kinda sad for her actually. She sounds like an intelligent young woman who's somehow been brainwashed into thinking her intelligence is more a curse than a gift.

[Hane]

And every book must, first and foremost, be examined to see whether it contains The Right Religion[tm][/tm]

[Janes Heir]

Emily's "second sight" thing and her near marriage to Dean Priest and subsequent breaking off of the engagement would be enough to make any fundy quiver in horror.

I am currently reading her letters to her friend Ephraim Weber. In them she is very open about not believing in creationism, the virgin birth, the divinity of Christ, and resurrection. I was a little horrified when I was still rather fundie and I read from those letters. Now I am in awe of her independent thinking in an orthodox environment. If I wasn't on my phone I'd share some quotes on people's "dearly beloved hell". In short, she called herself a Christian because she believed Jesus was a noble example, but Christian rhetoric ("washed in the blood" for example) disgusted her. Am I a mean person for wanting to slap the SAHD with all this?

[Savoring Samsara]

She makes it sound like taking the CLEP tests was an experience worthy of flowery prose and lengthy descriptions. They are not. All standardized tests are the same--wake up early, go to location, take test, breathe sigh of relief, treat self with nap or dessert.

The blog about CLEP tests isn't hers, but her brother's. But it definitely says something that both of them have the same overwrought and old-fashioned style of writing, doesn't it?

[VodouDoll]

she reveals that she goes through books and uses whiteout on the swear words (over 35 yards worth of tape, according to her). Mercifully, God wiped her memory of other swear words she recently encountered due to Christians who didn't have the same standards as her.

What? If she's reading the swear words in order to white them out, then she's already read them! Wouldn't her purity of mind be better guarded if her father redacted her books before she got them? Steve Maxwell would NOT approve.

[Palimpsest]

Oh my Dog, she's hilarious! Thanks for alerting me to such a snarkable blog. I'm slowly working my way through her reviews.

She read James Herriot's All Creatures Great and Small. She doesn't like animals at all, skipped the whole chapter when James and Tristran went on a date with two nurses in case it corrupted her tiny mind, is bothered by the beer drinking but decides it doesn't reach orgy level, and decided to rate it a 3.5 on a scale of 5 for "language." It took her ages to white all the naughty words out. :lol:

She is an absolute nit wit and smug as hell.

Oh, and I don't think I've ever heard of anyone else who has heard of, let alone read, Laddie. :D

[defraudingjezebel]

Meh. Honestly, I feel a bit sorry for her. I'm not much older than her but I remember going through a phase where I thought I was "soooo different than all of those other girls/people" for whatever reason, be it what I wear, what music I listen to, etc. I think she's going through that. The only problem is that many fundies are in some kind of arrested development where they never get past this stage. The continually see themselves as some special, wonderful snowflakes.

That being said, the way she writes makes her sound insufferable. Hopefully she'll get past the stage where every little thing offends her, or threatens to corrupt her genteel Austen-reading mind.

If she wants to read something completely Christian and without any anti-Christian plot points, let her read the Bible. Like other posters have said, she'll see more overt rape, destruction, violence, and chaos in there than in any 19th-century literature.

[bionicmlle]

I've been reading her blog in fits and starts because, well, that's the only way I can tolerate it. I wonder if she heavily moderates comments or has no readers. Do you think she whites out the curse words on comments? The sad thing is that if you tried to get into an actual dialogue with her about any material she'd just "Because JESUS" you. Her worldview is incredibly rigid - I hope that's just due to youth (to which she would likely reply with pride about her "childlike faith!"™)

[GeoBQn]

From her review of Ivanhoe:

That leads us to the treatment of the Jews. It really is tragic, in Ivanhoe, how God's chosen people bore the contempt of the general populace. True, Isaac of York's greed is almost ludicrous, and the average Jew had sunk to the position of an avaricious money lender, but the fact remains that Jews are God's chosen people. Though they are in ignorance of salvation while the Gentiles are brought in, they will one day be brought to a knowledge of repentance. We Gentiles are wild branches, grafted into the olive tree of Israel.

Yup. She wrote that . . .

[Dysfundamental]

*ahem* Tech writer and former English teacher puts on her bifocals re the CLEP quotations above--

No, these passages are indeed grammatically correct. They are also long, clumsy, and overblown, as if this kid has been taught that fraught and flowery language is somehow Way Classier than simple and to-the-point English.

JesusFightClub already pointed out some errors in those passages, and I noticed several others.

"For a fraction of a college course" doesn't mean anything at all; presumably, she means either "for a fraction of the cost of a college course" or "for a fraction of the time required for a college course."

"As with any new endeavor, I did not have complete confidence in its experience" is a head-scratcher for me. "My decision for my college education was firmly clear in my mind" also makes not a whit of sense, though here I can guess she means "The decisions I had made about the direction of my college education were clear" or similar.

Highfalutin but incoherent is a helluva way to go through life, Lady Bibliophile.

[Pandora Moon]

I'm reading this post of her: ladybibliophile.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/tall-tales-book-made-me-do-it-part-two.

She makes a list of things you should do to guard yourself from the influences of a book and I find number 2 interesting.

2. Have a purpose to your reading.

If you pick up Origin of Species, or Mein Kampf, or any type of man-centered literature (i.e. falsehood) then don't pick it up just because you don't have anything else to read, or you want to know what it was like, or you haven't read it yet. Every book should be read with purpose (even sometimes the purpose of rest and refreshment). It is purposeless reading that opens up the way to compromise.

(Bolding mine)

Since when is reading a book to see what it is like a bad thing? I suppose she'd be one of those people who would read something like a book refuting The God Delusion without actually reading The God Delusion.

BTW I hope I broke the link correctly as I haven't done it before.

[GeoBQn]

My Jewish WWII veteran grandfather read Mein Kampf so that he could understand the Nazi mindset better. He prided himself on being well-read--and probably in a much truer sense of the term than Lady Bibliophile.

[Hane]

JesusFightClub already pointed out some errors in those passages, and I noticed several others.

"For a fraction of a college course" doesn't mean anything at all; presumably, she means either "for a fraction of the cost of a college course" or "for a fraction of the time required for a college course."

"As with any new endeavor, I did not have complete confidence in its experience" is a head-scratcher for me. "My decision for my college education was firmly clear in my mind" also makes not a whit of sense, though here I can guess she means "The decisions I had made about the direction of my college education were clear" or similar.

Highfalutin but incoherent is a helluva way to go through life, Lady Bibliophile.

Whoa, crap--you're absolutely right. I read this wall o' text a tad bit too fast, and on my phone. I went back and hacked my way through the tulgey wood (burbling as I came) and was indeed able to see the fucked-uppery therein.

I read a lot of 19th-century novels and memoirs, and notice that they are hardly shining examples of grammatical correctness. For instance, one can hardly read a paragraph of Twelve Years a Slave without tripping over a dangling participle or misplaced modifier.

These folks think that Victorian-era writing is the ne plus ultra of quality, what with all the fancy words, long and intricate sentences, Jesusiness, and No (perceived) Sex.

It would behoove them to read more widely.

[snarkykitty]

Any relation to the Moody Family books? :lol:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2164274/

[lilwriter85]

I'm looking through her blog now. So far I see her as a more hardcore fundie version of Raquel.

[Diana]

I am reading her blog and im sorry but i think she is a hypocrite, how can she say that she doesnt read books with even a little bit of sexual or violence references and then say that one of her favorite books is the silmarillion. I mean i also love that book, but it has plenty of violence, and there a references to sex(even to incest), and there are lots of gods!

She probably just make exceptions to the rules when she wants to read a book.

And why the hell she cant read a book with catholic characters? what a shame because i think she would find the books about martyrs fascinating :lol:

[Dysfundamental]

Obviously she can read about Catholics. Or at least watch movies about them (really doubting she actually read Les Misérables, or that she knows Hugo was an agnostic).

[nelliebelle1197]

Her name is Schuyler McConkey. She spoke at a homeschool conference on how to be a SAHD and how to read books and she is an aspiring author:

conference.homeschoolmichigan.org/workshopinfo.html?sortby=isp&sp=smcconkey

Her brother has a blog. The family is IFB and into college plus and fundie:

victoriouswarriorblog.blogspot.com/

Dad (check out moms dress): plus.google.com/106228761740694174764/posts

The brother's writing actually gave me a sharp, stabbing pain behind my right eye. The left eye only twitched.

[JesusFightClub]

God designed us to help men. It's an innate need that young ladies have to be completed, secure, and restored to the side of the man God picked out for them. Even the staunchest feminist is completing some man and his ideas (Karl Marx, etc.)

Er, what?

For a start, a lot of feminists aren't Marxists. What if women are fans of some woman and her ideas? What if men are fans of a particular woman's ideas (it has been known)? Or what if men are Marxists, does that mean they're in a gay relationship with the ghost of Karl Marx (and if so, is this the spectre that's haunting Europe?) What if men and women have their own ideas? :pink-shock:

How about kingdom talk? What if young people discussed how to take dominion of media, warfare, politics, and family? What if we discussed basic theology-not in a debating way, but as a source of mutual edification? Ever told Dylan and Sophia what you're memorizing? Or specific ways you've been building up your family?

Bloody hell, that makes conversations with members of the Socialist Workers' Party actually sound interesting. I mean no insult to Lady B, but I can't think of anything more boring than discussing basic theology as a source of mutual edification.

Sister A: "Blessings, brother. Jesus was crucified then rose again, you know."

Brother B: "Blessings, sister. That certainly is a blessed thought."

Sister A: "Well, blessings to you on this blessed day. By the way, works alone won't save you, but faith in our Lord will."

Brother B: "..."

And please, ladies, treat your brother well. If you wouldn't hold hands with your brother, should you really be holding hands with Justin? If you don't tell your brother about a particular struggle, should you really be sharing that with a 'brother' in Christ?

I don't get this, as it seems to be suggesting that women secretly fancy their brothers. I mean, I wouldn't avoid holding my brother's hand because he's my brother, but because he's a grown man and he's a bit old for it. I have however held his hand when he was upset by something. I also don't tell him loads of things, but that's because he wouldn't care about them, not because he's my brother.

I don't know if Lady B routinely holds hands with men just because they are men, but I suspect not. I think she might hold hands with some men because she is attracted to them, which is perfectly normal. I would advise not getting this feeling confused with her feelings for her brother. It's a bit different.

[slickcat79]

Bloody hell, that makes conversations with members of the Socialist Workers' Party actually sound interesting. I mean no insult to Lady B, but I can't think of anything more boring than discussing basic theology as a source of mutual edification.

I can.

The Peasant Girl's Dream*:

Heather and Snow depicts the low highlands of the Grampian Mountains west of Aberdeen at its most vivid, set in the same region as Salted with Fire (The Minister’s Restoration in the Bethany House series) and tells a humble story of the enduring quality of love–between a man and his friend, between parents and children, between brother and sister, between man and woman, and between a simple-minded boy and his God. What you read here may not turn your world upside-down with startling revelations. This is a quiet story, to be savored as its influences and relationships and perspectives soak gently into your spirit.

Twilight*:

Bella Swan's move to Forks, a small, perpetually rainy town in Washington, could have been the most boring move she ever made. But once she meets the mysterious and alluring Edward Cullen, Bella's life takes a thrilling and terrifying turn. Up until now, Edward has managed to keep his vampire identity a secret in the small community he lives in, but now nobody is safe, especially Bella, the person Edward holds most dear.

Deeply romantic and extraordinarily suspenseful, Twilight captures the struggle between defying our instincts and satisfying our desires. This is a love story with bite.

I haven't actually read the Twilight series, but that first book sounds boring as fuck. Naturally, that's the one she recommends, although she has also not read Twilight :?

ladybibliophile.blogspot.com/2012/01/you-cant-judge-book.html