Crimes and chrome: and even more perspectives.

Hello there, my children. My name is Pearl, thank you for stopping by and a special thank you to Grace the Superstar for allowing me to be on her side of the internet.

When she first asked me if I wanted to be on it, my first reaction was ‘Yes yes, a thousand times yes’ but soon after, it occurred to me that my life is not as interesting as it seems in my head, but I decided to take a page from the superstar book and adopt a different perspective. I continued with this line of thought and to be very honest, I still considered emailing Grace again and explaining to her that I couldn't go through with it, but then, I didn't want to be a quitter, I have this thing where I want to do something but I overthink it and end up not doing it and then I regret it.

It's one thing to love writing and it's another thing to actually know how to write and it's a totally different thing when you know how to write but you're not sure of yourself or of what to write.

I always thought creativity meant being bold and spontaneous, having big ideas with even bigger executions, but creativity without structure might make little to no sense. Adding structure to creativity brings harmony, and who doesn't like harmony? I know so many people may not agree with this sha, but it's my opinion.

But the good news is, I'm learning to trust myself more and I'm also learning that I can actually be responsible and competent if I want to be.

The major thing I've learnt this month is that, true true, God is good o. I feel really happy that I went through with writing this newsletter. I had to sacrifice plenty of hours but it was worth it. It's a thing of joy for me—to make plans and actually do them. Who knows, maybe one day, someway, somehow, I'll have a newsletter of my own, *gasp*.

For the meantime, my life majorly revolves around school and being a student. I think about it so often, even in my sleep, I'm dreaming of writing tests and exams. I don't know if I should be worried about that yet, but I guess time will tell.

Speaking of tests, I have a lot of them to write next week; Monday, Friday and Saturday. The thing is, once you start writing tests, there's no stopping until exam timetables are released. I'm not really even fazed, because I have been studying, but then, I feel like writing a test on Saturday should be a crime against nature; there's a reason God created a sabbath, but well, it is what it is.

I think I've done well in this section, so let us now enter the fascinating and beautiful world of literature.

This is where we talk about the books I've been reading recently. The fiction book of the month is 'Don't let her stay' by Nicola Sanders. I first picked up this book after reading the synopsis on a previous entry by Grace, I was reading the first few chapters late one night, after a very stressful day of school activities and to be real, I didn't like it at first, I thought the story was dragging a lot, like can we skip to the good part please and before I knew it, I slept off trying to make sense of the parts I had read.

I wanted to stop and give up, but mercy said no, and I finished it the next day, mainly out of curiosity. I have this thing when I'm reading a book, if I think it's getting too boring, I skip to the last page or the last chapter, and glance through and decide whether or not I want to continue with it.

Surprisingly, I couldn't bring myself to do that while reading this book and I ended up reading it, word for word to the very last page. Oh, yes, disclaimer: there'll be major spoilers and stuff like that so be warned.

If you like the thriller genre, you'll love this book, I promise. For me, the book is a solid 8/10. It doesn't have romance, but it managed to keep me hooked, which is surprising—for me.

By the way, the last words of the book was the title 'Don't let her stay', it felt like a full circle moment when I read it. Before I say anything else, let me drop the synopsis;

Can you believe this? First of all, after I finished this book, I thought, wait, what really inspired this woman to write a story like this? Could it be based on true events in her own life or someone she knows? Can people actually be this manipulative and mentally deranged?

I kept thinking that this Chloe reminds me of Lila, from that Miraculous Ladybug animation. Funny enough, there's a character in the cartoon called Chloe, and she also has an over-indulgent father—book Chloe is much worse though, she and Lila might be twins from a different multiverse, if that makes sense, but obviously, Chloe is the eviller twin.

Chloe just kept on lying and lying, even I started to believe her. She actually managed to deceive her stepmother into thinking that her dad was trying to kill them, but she actually wanted her stepmother and her stepsister dead, I felt really bad for her dad, Richard (I thought his name was Robert). He ended up dead because his daughter was jealous of her sisters and her mum—like really, that was her driving force, envy.

She wanted to be the only object of her father's affection, she poisoned her baby sister and pushed her birth mum to death, and then, after several years, she tries to do it to her stepmother, who remarried her father and had a baby with him.

The book was written from the stepmother's perspective (Joanne), but I think I read it from Chloe's perspective. Poor Joanne, she thought she had married and gotten a life she wanted, but sike. Oh, yes, another thing that stood out for me was how Joanne's own mother was actually mental as well, she had postpartum psychosis—which I hope is a fictional phenomenon.

I mean, I've heard of postpartum depression, but postpartum psychosis? Ah ah. Must pregnancy and childbirth be that deep? Anyways, it made me think, what is it about Joanne that she always found herself in the midst of mentally deranged people anyways? If this story was based in Nigeria, I would've said, maybe her village people have come for her or something. Anyways, you'll just have to read the book for yourself. Like I said, it's a solid 8/10 or well 8.6 actually, which is basically nine. So, read the book. Join the readalong on Storygraph here.

The book I read prior to this is a romance book, specifically, a high school based romance. I saw it on a friend's status, and I was like, this babe has great taste in books, let me read too. The book is called, My week with him—unfortunately, I don't remember the author's name.

I honestly don't know how I felt about the book, I'll give it 5/10 because, for me, it wasn't so captivating and engrossing as the one I just talked about, but then who am I to compare books to each other? Most especially books of different genres?

I think I might gradually be growing out of my love for high school romance, maybe because I'm no longer in highschool? Or I'm no longer in love? Or is it a romance book slump? Hm. This is seriouser than I thought. But anyways, you can read it as well. It's always good to have an open mind.

Oh, I just remembered telling Grace I was reading this Twisted series by Ana Huang, I don't think I can give a proper review though. I read it with my roommates but I didn't finish it. I could not even finish one book from the series. The books were good o, in a bad way, but really, it was me, I was the problem. I can't recommend it to you though.

What books have you been reading? Reply this email, if you can—although Grace will be in charge again, but still, you're in good hands.

I'll just leave this here, hopefully I'll come back to read it, eventually.

I'm especially excited to talk about this segment with you, music is an essential part of my persona—oh my God, I just remembered that YouTube ad; 'persona persona', it's an app for photo editing, I think. I know you've heard about it. But if you haven't, well, just pretend like you have.

What songs have I been listening to? If you open my spotify, you're going to see mostly gospel songs, that's what my spotify is dedicated to, but if you open my Youtube, heh—well, let's just say, it's everything,everywhere all at once.

One song that has been stuck in my head for a frightening amount of time is, 'Can't catch me now’ by Olivia Rodrigo. I first heard it on tiktok last year, and then I watched the music video and I loved it. The song is from the latest Hunger games movie, 'The ballad of songbirds and snakes’.

Funny thing is, I've never seen any of the films or read the books in the Hunger games franchise, but I'm so obsessed with the song. Sometime last year, I made an attempt to read a particular book from the series, so I could feel less guilty for loving the song, but of course, I couldn't understand what I was reading since I didn't follow the series from the very beginning, so I let it go. I just allowed myself to love the song and enjoy it until I got tired of it, but it's getting to one year and I still love it, so we're for lifers now.

I think Olivia Rodrigo is pretty cool, I mostly know her songs thanks to tiktok, I can't call myself a huge fan, but I have respect for her.

Some other songs that have been in my head are; These boots are made for walking by Nancy Sinatra, Let there be love by Nina Simone, Murder on the dance floor by Sophia (something), Love on top, Back to 74, Back to black, Get lucky (Pharrel Williams), and then, there's ‘Please, please, please’ by Sabrina Carpenter, I haven't listened to it actually but I keep hearing snippets of it everywhere. Anyways, that's all for this segment, let me know what you've been listening to.

Part of me wanted to erase this section because I don't spend a lot of time watching movies. The last movie I remember watching (to the end) was Lift. I saw it a few days after it was released this year on my roommate's phone and I'm very proud of that. It's a crime based film. I usually enjoy these types of films, but mostly when the bad guys are caught by the good guys. Something like a Law and Order type of thing, but in this movie, the good guys joined the bad guys to commit crime, I still enjoyed it though.

It was giving ‘Fast and furious’ too, but like with more comedy. I think it's on Netflix, if it's not, you can do what a lot of us do and download it from a website.

I want to watch ‘Only Murders in the building’ but I don't have Hulu, so I'll just be patient. I've only seen (read) the first episode and I might be hooked already. Please and please and please, no one should tell me how it ends.

I also want to watch ‘Back to black’ the film, I doubt I'll even enjoy it. At least, not as much as I like the song.

Should I watch more movies? Well maybe. Will I? Not likely. Life is choice driven. I haven't watched a proper romance in a while though. If you have any good recommendations, do tell.

Right now, I'm holding on to as much of life as I can. I hate sounding like this, like I'm going through a lot, but the truth is, I'm just dramatic and I tend to exaggerate. I'm working on it sha. Not on being dramatic o, I can't do much about that, but I want to remain as positive as possible.

Recently, whenever someone asks me how I'm doing, I try to intentionally say I'm thriving, even when it doesn't feel like it, but then, there are times that I'll have to be honest with myself, like ‘Pearl, today was a bad day, and you have every right to be upset’. Your feelings are valid, but they do not define you.

Omo omo, we made it to the end, guys. I had a bit of a struggle coming up with the heading of this newsletter, so only God knows what I would put at the end, but the ending must be greater than the beginning right? So I'll just say I love you and I hope you have a great week.

Goodbye, my children.

Xoxo.