I need to stop being such a people-pleaser

I was supposed to work from 1-7 today, but I was woken by a phone call at 9 to ask if I could make it by 11:30. Of course I said yes, just like I said yes to working 11-4 tomorrow when it was supposed to be my day off. This is something I told myself I was not going to do this summer. I need to be more assertive and say no when I don't want to do something. I called Kyle afterwards and bitched about it, and he was like "Next time, just politely say that if they want to change your schedule it would be nice if they would ask the day before rather than a couple of hours because you made plans". I was like....yes, that would be easy wouldn't it. It's a good thing someone in this relationship is level-headed. :P


I finished Stephenie Meyer's The Host last night. It's her first book for adults, since the Twilight series is technically YA. I say technically, because I feel that with both this book and that series there's really no appropriate age of enjoyment. For example, the head tech at my clinic was raving about Twilight the other day, and she's probably in her late 40s.

It took me a few chapters to get into the storyline. I haven't read a lot of sci-fi lately, and this was so different than Twilight. I soon very much believed in Wanderer, the alien soul that was inserted into Mel, the human host, and their struggles since Mel wouldn't give up her body and fade away.

Earth has been taken over by these souls and there are only a few wild humans left. The souls do not believe in violence so they believe that every world they take over is improved, but through the course of the story Wanderer begins to see that this is perhaps not the case.

The book seems to be leading toward an inevitable conclusion, which is suddenly ripped away and this new twist appears that shocks the reader--or at least shocked me. I loved the ending, and I loved Meyer's writing. During Wanderer's biggest personal struggle I was crying for probably 50 pages straight as I waited to see what she would decide to do.

This book is HIGHLY recommended, even to readers who are not fans of science fiction. In the end, it's not a sci-fi book; it's a book about love and the strength of the human spirit that happens to have a sci-fi background.