yoursexylibrarian.com

is a quirky reality show baking competition in which three home bakers compete to replicate a professional’s stunning creation, such as a perfectly crafted yellow fondant-covered and decorated emoji cake, in the hopes of winning a $10,000 prize. Past judges have included American cake queen Sylvia Weinstock, whose signs each of her cake creations with a small edible pair of large round glasses that resemble her own spectacles, and Israeli pastry chef Ron Ben-Israel, who is known for his beautiful sugar paste flower decorations and gorgeous celebration cakes. Byer is an American improv comedian and actress who brags on the show that she is very good at being annoying, which is perfect for the final rounds in which a contestant wins the advantage of Byer distracting the other contestants for three minutes each. According to a July 17 interview between Byer and Torres and Vulture.com reporter Jen Chaney, an hour or more of filming will be edited down to the roughly 30 minute episode that is aired on Netflix.

While this sounds odd and perhaps crazy to some people, I was on the hunt for information about how other cultures deal with death, mourning, grief, and their actual physical dead. She touches on how other cultures view and deal with death, of how there is an impersonal gap for the deceased’s family during the American cremation process, and how swiftly American funeral home employees remove a deceased loved one from his or her home while telling the family the sudden removal is for public health and safety. This death ritual was the furthest idea from a satin-lined coffin housing an embalmed body in a funeral home while a member of the clergy delivered a message about death, dying, and the afterlife to assembled mourners that I came across in my readings, which may be why I was drawn to this small bit in Smoke Gets in Your Eyes. While the thought of funerary cannibalism is probably distressing to a great deal of North Americans, I appreciate the Wari’ tradition because it left no uncertainty as to the physical fate of the dead and it connected the entire tribe in the grieving process.

I am reviewing books through the Blogging for Books program in an effort to support my community’s Little Free Library, thus the addition of book reviews outside of the usual sexual health topics to Your Sexy Librarian postings. Convicted by Jameel McGee and Andrew Collins with Mark Tabb, which was released on September 19, 2017, is the story of two men, one an overzealous police officer who eventually becomes corrupt and the other a new father truthfully in the wrong place at the wrong time who becomes a victim of the other man’s corrosive and unlawful behavior. Convicted shares incredible life lessons, from the consequences of dishonest public servants to how race profiling impacts the innocent to how forgiveness can empower an individual, in simple terms and uses language that is accessible to a vast majority of readers across many age groups. Both McGee and Collins served time in prison, which is conveyed through the cover photography and layout which is reminiscence of men walking around a prison yard.

I was asked by an intern at Hachette Book Group to review one of their recently released books and publish the review on Your Sexy Librarian because the book’s topic falls into my blog wheelhouse of sexual health and sexual issues. Although I understand Friedman’s ideas, I cannot easily explain in layman’s terms what “fauxpowerment” means in reality, even after reading Unscrewed. While I don’t personally appreciate her writing style, in which she packs a huge amount of detail into a single paragraph and occasionally jumps abruptly from one subject to another within the same chapter, there are members of the Goodreads and Amazon communities who completely disagree with my assessment and just adore Friedman’s writing in general. I received this book from Hachette Book Group for this review.