Chaotic Array

All I've done today is stress out, wash dishes, play FortNite, stress out some more, and do a brief blurb for a new book I'm going to start working on. Or I guess I already started working on it. The problem is I'm pretty sure I have a brain tumor, I can't afford an MRI, and I have to make an appointment at a free clinic tomorrow so I can get a referral, which might take months, and in the meantime my head feels inflamed, I've been getting worse and worse cluster headaches for weeks now, and I'm constantly terrified or frustrated about it all. I hope I can actually get into the clinic I have my eye on tomorrow because I don't have a family doctor who can refer me. I'd ideally like to pay the almost $800 bucks to get a quick MRI done but instead I'll be on a waiting list for like eight weeks which is another whole nightmare because I don't know if I can even survive that long. I keep telling myself a lot of brain tumors (most) I think, are benign,...

I've been eyeing ideas for a couple of different standalone novels recently and it's got me asking myself what I think constitutes a good standalone novel, what makes it more beneficial for a story to be a single piece rather than a series, etc. In the process I've obviously been revisiting a lot of the standalones I've loved in the past. And I decided a few of them are a little too slept on by the bookish side of the internet. So, here's my shoutout for my top 5 YA standalones that I think deserve more love. If you're trying to capitalize on your quarantine lockdown time to read more, here's a couple titles your TBR could benefit from meeting. 5: Daughter of Deep Silence by Carrie Ryan Do you like revenge? Do you like mysteries? Do you like thrilling, dangerous situations involving rich, beautiful people and their shocking, dirty, blood-stained scandals? Do you enjoy a nice Old American lavish murder mystery aesthetic? If the answer to any of these question...