This is MJ. I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm an analyzer. You can find all my work
at MJMunoz.com. Welcome to Story Over Everything. This is a Skimming Leaves
episode. It's episode 48 actually of Skimming Leaves where I'm talking about
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. This is a casual book chat episode. It's
very short as far as content for the casual book chat. So after I finish
talking about Harry Potter, or after past me is done talking about Harry Potter
book 7, I'm going to talk a little bit about what's next for Skimming Leaves
slash Story Over Everything slash whatever I call the thing in the end. It's
actually uh, hold on let me see, I can't actually look it up right now, but it's
got a title and I do know what it is and it's already on assets that I've made
for the first episode which has actually already been recorded in part at least.
So anyway, I'm just gonna preface by saying despite how it sounds at first
and then how I contradict myself after that, I do like Harry Potter and the
Deathly Hallows. I thought it was a really interesting book and I'll tell
you some of the reasons why. I don't cover a lot of it because so much of it is
spoilers and I think honestly I probably started recording right after finishing
the book and I just wanted to spoil it so much that I couldn't allow myself to
speak that much about it. So yeah that is part of the reason it's a shorter
episode but again after it's done you'll get to hear me talk about what's next
and what books we can look forward to reading and talking about together.
So Harry Potter book 7, the Deathly Hallows, is a very interesting book. I'm
not 100% sure how I feel about it other than the fact that I like it. The ending
of it was a little too short for me. I appreciate the epilogue. It was a very
short epilogue. I almost wonder if I would have enjoyed it more without the
epilogue if it had just had some sort of other denouement and that was the
end of it. I'm not sure. The resolution honestly like the final battle
type thing happened kind of quickly. Like it was interesting there were like nice
steaks, you know fat juicy steaks, and you know overall that was good and I felt
really you know it was it was semi-anticlimactic. I'll be 100% honest. I
won't share what I mean by that just yet but the like big showdown final match
was almost not a big showdown in a final match and I think it's thematically
correct and I don't necessarily know what Rowling was trying to say with that
or Rowling as they call her in the audiobooks. I don't think I necessarily
know what Rowling was trying to say with the way it ended but there was a really
nice after the final battle was over moment of reflection and coming down
from things that I really appreciated and gosh how do I put this? Can I say this
right out or not? I'll be vague about it. There's an ultimate weapon basically
that Harry is able to utilize at some point and he has in his possession, maybe
that's the more correct way to say it, he has in his possession and he seeks
counsel from somebody and he decides to lay down his arms and to not literally
his arms but he chooses to take this super weapon which may need to be taken
from somebody by blood or by bloodshed I should say. Well and to clarify that
means that the ultimate power of this weapon is most effective when you have
murdered the previous owner of it and taken it from their corpse and Harry
decides to end the... he decides to do something that will break the power of
this weapon and he basically ruins it for himself and that's a very interesting
choice it's a very bold choice especially because earlier in the book he
had become fixated on finding this weapon and you can guess I'm sure
Voldemort had been fixated on finding this weapon and it was really an
interesting turn it was really interesting to see how the two of them
were warped by it and even some other characters were awe-stricken and
desirous of this weapon but ultimately Harry decides to nullify its efficacy
and therefore help to prevent a future war or any future bloodshed over it
really forget about a war just even the one you know murder of somebody for the
sake of something like that is you know tragic so very interesting so like
definitely you know totalitarianism comes to the front and these concepts
of revolution come to the front in this book and kind of you know war and
fighting kind of comes to the front and like war is important and the ability to
fight war and to stop evil people from doing evil by opposing them with you
know violence of your own you know violence that's justified is good and is
really interesting so I I don't really know like what rolling is like talking
about or whatever you know overall objective or point is of this book other
than wrapping up the series which I think she does quite well you know it
brings everything to a head as I think I've already said twice I need to stop
that and I'm really curious well I mean my my eldest really enjoyed the book and
anyway there was um like I want to know people's broad reactions to it because I
think it's overall a satisfying ending and a satisfying conclusion and at some
point kind of like in return of the king you know Tolkien's return of the king I
was not depressed but it's like man this is like really a downer of a book and
what's going on and then you know things got better of course things got worse
but ultimately they ended well and everybody's happy and whatnot and there's
no peace and I feel like it'll be a lasting piece although you know I
wouldn't mind if there were some more conflicts in the wizarding world
different you know you know outside of Hogwarts or different things being
explored in different ways because when it's all said and done it's like a
really interesting world that's been developed and it's really you know fun
there's a lot of cool ideas that Rowling got to do in here and I know it's just
it's really interesting basically Harry, Hermione, and Ron are on their own with no
guidance and nobody to help them and well nobody outwardly saying that
they're guiding them and helping them and maybe they're receiving help and
guidance in you know interesting ways but it's a really interesting I don't
know it's like that's like a great metaphor for growing up and my favorite
thing in this is that when Harry eventually starts dealing with Voldemort
outright he just starts calling him Tom or Tom Riddle like he addresses him as
Tom Riddle not Lord Voldemort not he must be named nothing like that he just
starts calling him Tom which I love that and I had like maybe by the third book I
thought hey it'd be really cool if instead of calling him Voldemort they
just started calling him Tom or Tom Riddle and you know mock him by that or
whatever and they do and or Harry does and it's excellent and like really the
final conflict between them is mostly a conversation I think I mean it's more
protracted than that but it's like you can boil it down to a conference a
conversation the conversation is a conversation where Harry basically tells
Tom you're not a real man and I'm a real man and I want to give you a chance to
be a real man because that's what real men do iron sharpens iron bro and
it's really an incredible moment for Harry and thinking about it now it makes
me think this book is really about Harry growing up and Harry becoming a man
and maybe that's what the whole series has been coming of age right but he
basically gets to be out in the wilderness figuratively and literally on
his own with the help from his friends and they've got to figure it all out and
it does not go well for the majority of the book and as soon as it starts to go
well and they start making progress rolling ratchets it up the difficulty
and gives them issue after issue after issue to deal with and they do not have
an easy go of it and it's very entertaining because of that and yeah I
don't know I don't really know what to say I want to spoil so much I'll say
this if this movie or this book were an episode of friends it would be called
the one with all the deaths and several people die I cared about two deaths to
a degree that I had no idea I would care about these deaths and there were a
couple surprise deaths that I think rolling failed to make full net
narrative impact with them in how they went down and I think that's too bad I
don't know why she didn't just add a couple chapters of the book or shift
things around to include these deaths and maybe because it wouldn't be
satisfying or it'd be like too grisly or something
but I miss not having them and honestly I didn't get the full emotional effect
because of that I believe and that's too bad that's really too bad so yeah it was
a yeah it was an interesting book like you get little insights into the past
that are supposed to justify certain characters and how they behaved and what
they did in this book and perhaps others and I don't really get it I didn't really
care I didn't really empathize or sympathize too much and like in some way
they made things okay for me and in other ways some of the consequences of
people learning the truth about their actions like didn't make any sense to me
and it was weird
so that was that was really interesting again overall it was a really good book
I really enjoyed it I definitely want to spend more time in the Wizarding World
and hey lucky me Cloud Library has a few more rolling books there's short stuff
there's the Tales of Beetle to Bard which features in this book there's
there's a history of Quidditch for sort of quidditch throughout the ages there's
fantastic beasts and where to find them so I'm very interested in checking those
out as well and I'm hoping that they'll be enjoyable and kind of like how I read
the Cimmerillian after the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy I hope I
will enjoy these you know shorter smaller stories that give us peeks into
different parts of the world just as much as I enjoyed the main series so
that's what I have to say about that I really think I'm gonna go ahead and wrap
up then because I don't have much else to say I want to spoil it but I'm not
gonna spoil it for now and yeah that's uh that's all so toodaloo until next time
folks thanks past me I'll take it from here alright so folks here's here's
what's going on I have explained this a little bit already but I will I'll talk
about why I'm making the shift I really want to write books professionally I
really want my career to be as an author among other things I'm okay with doing
other things but uh as long as it's creative I'll be happy with that but
really I do want to write stories I want to tell stories I want to entertain
people with stories and I want to talk about stories too I want to write I want
to read write and talk about stories now the reading and talking about stories is
super easy barely any convenience all you got to do is read a story and talk
about it but I'd like to have some sort of audience to talk about it with for
now I'm content with talking about books as or I'm talking about books by myself
although you know the format of skimming leaves is to invite a book chat a
casual book chat as I say and I'm happy with that now the next thing the next
leg of the journey will also be structured so as to invite a casual book
chat but it'll be a little more a little different a little more a little faster
a little more put together and I guess that's the thing the difference between
what's going on right now what I've been doing with the Harry Potter books is I
took way too long to produce them I put I put too much of the wrong kind of
effort into them and I've decided that what I'm going to do instead is I believe
the list of minimum three dozen books that I've picked for this next project
which will take the place of skimming leaves yeah it'll take the place of
skimming leaves for sure it will be the main thing going out over story over
everything for the next year or for the you know for the rest of 2024 and yet
I've decided to make things be structured in such a way that that will
not stop me what does that mean that means that you will get multiple
uploads a week to the story over everything audio podcast feed which is
all linked to that which which it and everything else I'm doing is being linked
at MJMunius.com so just about every single day of the week you're gonna see
a post going up will it be short yes guaranteed there will be a short post
where I'm reading to you what I wrote and giving some commentary on the process
of it or describing to you what I've drawn and giving some commentary on the
process of it and some thoughts on the creation of it that's gonna be a lot of
what you're gonna see but in addition to that you can expect every week from this
week on one book chat going up which in which I will discuss a middle grade book
and that's about it I'll announce at the end of one episode oh whoa whoa I'd not
decided this yet okay I will announce the next book that I'm going to read at
the end of the first episode and you know what hey I can do this now the
first book I'm going to read in this series of reading and reviewing and
talking about these middle grade books middle grade novels is tuck everlasting
which was published in 1971 or no 75 by Babbitt I don't remember her name Natalie
Babbitt I think the tell you Natalie Babbitt so if you want to be in on that
with me go ahead and read it since I'm gonna put this I want to wait to tell
you what I think about these books until I've actually read them so instead of
saying this is a great book or this is a terrible book or whatever and then
telling you to go read it and look forward to it look forward to hearing my
commentary on it and maybe joining in with me and making comments about the
book I'm gonna tell you this is the book I'm gonna be reading next week and
talking about in the book chat I welcome you to if you're interested read it and
listen if you don't want to read it and you don't want to or listen to the book
because almost every I think every book I'm gonna put on the list well I need to
verify every book I have I have planned to listen to the audiobook version of it
so that's something you can join me in doing listening to the audiobook as well
I'm gonna have as many of them be books that can be found for free on cloud
library or hoopla which are legal sources for those sorts of things and
then for some books I will be listening to the LibriVox version which is again
a free and legal copy of the book found in audio format so I'll provide links to
those things as well that's more stuff for me to do that's okay it's okay
more stuff for me to do but it's alright it's gonna be good in the long run I
want people to use these free sources any free resources anyway because I think
it's a good thing to do you know media is expensive but quality media matters
and you're gonna want to invest in a nice hard copy of it or buy your own
audio version of it or whatever for the future so learning about these books and
having yourself exposed them having your mind open to them is gonna help you in
the future and the point of this project that I'm doing is to gain a mastery over
middle grade fiction by reading middle grade fiction from the past the
classics and middle grade fiction from the modern times which are also
considered to be very popular very well received I want to see kind of what are
the limits of middle grade what is how far to the bounds of middle grade go
because honestly I'm only really interested in writing pulp fantasy
superheroes maybe adventure that's about it and I think that's okay there's
nothing wrong with only wanting to enjoy those things
I don't use anything else that's that's the truth there's nothing wrong with
only enjoying those things what I do think is wrong is saying that I'm wrong
for only enjoying those and saying I must read if I'm going to read middle
grade or anything I must read certain genres or literary fiction or whatever
they call the fancy schmancy stuff that I don't really prefer that isn't really
my taste so yeah I haven't fully surveyed my list and paid attention to
it but I'll be honest and tell you that there are some books on that list that I
know that I am uncomfortable with and that I didn't really want to read but
for the sake of this project and for the sake of like I said attaining some level
of mastery and experience and being able to have a bit of authority to say hey I
read all these books and these are my thoughts on them or I read all these
books and I did reviews of all of them and here they are you can read them or
listen to them and hear my honest open thoughts on these books I decided to
push myself and do that so anyway yeah so Chuck Everlasting is the first book
in the series of books I'm going to be doing once a week for please God the
rest of the year and that should equal minimum three dozen or 36 books
potentially more so we'll see how everything works out we'll see how well
things go and if a book is truly horrendous I might say I read this for
the project I don't want to talk about it this is you know who it's by this is
when it was written this is the publisher was and if you're interested in
it you can look into it on your own I have no interest in discussing it I
sincerely have entertained that idea and I think well I thought about it so I can
say you know if I ran into something like that what would I do well there I
have my solution that's exactly what I would do there are for sure adult books
that I've read like that or that I've read and received like that and I would
have the same thing to say I'm not gonna name them here because while this this
isn't being put out for kids to listen to it's being put out for adults to
listen to you I want it to be all a sorry I got interrupted there but my
point is that my brand is family-friendly I want to write family
friendly things so I'm going to read and review family friendly things and what
is family friendly it's just like subjective it's just like your opinion
man yeah I know it's just my opinion man so I'm gonna let you know this is what
I'm doing and this is what I find to be family friendly and this is something I
don't and just over time you'll have to see if you agree with me if you trust me
if you think I'm a nut then you know whatever you can judge it on a case by
case basis that's what I'm gonna be doing with all these books I'm reading
I'm gonna be judging them on a case by case basis and assessing them that way
and you can agree or disagree that's okay you can agree or disagree and if
you disagree that's fine I'm not telling you I'm not forcing you to buy books I'm
not forcing you to not buy books so yeah I'm also not calling for people to be
canceled or attacked or boycott or anything like that so yeah I mean is it a
boycott because it's not my preference to buy that and I'm not gonna tell
people to read it I mean if you want to call that a boycott you can call it a
boycott but I don't think it's the same thing it's just like yeah this is not me
I'm not gonna I'm not gonna buy women's pants because I don't wear women's pants
that's just how it is so anyway yeah so what was my overall point I'm not sure I
guess I'm just trying to let you know what it's going to be like going forward
on story over everything I will continue to make you know content I'm gonna
continue writing my own books which are middle grade and in order to help me
understand the market better help me be exposed to the market in some way I'm
gonna be reading slash listening to and talking about middle grade books and
I'm gonna cover a spectrum from like you know stuff I wouldn't enjoy so much like
everyday normal life just like the life of a kid I guess to really cool stuff
like you know kids going off and having adventures and stuff in between you know
mystical magical adventures and you know other worlds or whatnot and then just
like you know mundane stuff at home I'm gonna cover the whole gamut of that and
I think that's good and even in my writing I'm having kids I know I I want
the fantastical so I'm writing fantastical stuff with my kids but like
they're also in mundane settings in their homes in the suburbs in you know
regular places that kids go and even my more fantastical stuff with the grow
bugs themselves that's all like it's a semi fantastical area it's just like a
wilderness like a park like these bugs are living in this bush in a park but
they're magical and they're having magical adventures in there so yeah I
just I like that that's fun for me I don't necessarily want to write it right
or read a depressing book about people living normal sad boring lives because
you know hey I'm right here no I have I have a wonderful life and you can too if
you you decide to make it so it's a lot of it is how you look at things a line I
stole and I think possibly directly quoted in it but in one of my characters
mouths from from Star Wars from Qui-Gon Jinn your focus determines your reality
so you know how you want things to be a lot of what your mindset is and how you
think about things is deterministic or you know colors heavily your reality
because it colors the way you perceive things so anyway I think that about does
it for me this is gone a bit longer than I thought it would but I'm doing I think
good setup to ramp people up and bring them into the next chapter which is you
know we're putting Harry Potter behind us I did end up reading Tales of the
Beetle the Bard and which is really good actually and fantastic beasts but I don't
know that I'm gonna talk about them definitely not fantastic beasts that's
not something to talk about there's not enough of a narrative there but I it's
not something I recommend against reading let me put it that way but yeah
tells a beetle the bard maybe at some point I'll do it but you know don't hold
me to that don't hold me to that I definitely suggest you read it it's a
good stuff if you like Harry Potter it's it's good and if you didn't like
Harry Potter it's also good it's just good good storytelling very very cool
stuff so yeah that's uh that's it for now I'm gonna go ahead and get out of
here until next time folks take care be well this is MJ signing out I hope you
enjoyed that go to MJMunoz.com to leave any questions comments or other
feedback you might have there you can find all of my analysis art and fiction I
cover books tokusatsu comic books anime and more look around you're sure to find
something else that you'll enjoy as well this has been a story over everything
production