I actually wanted to comment here and say I can empathize. It's more like 30K for me, but that is 30K more than I ever meant to have. I'm also 29, and 98% of my job experience is in restaurants and I have no idea how to translate that into what I want to do, which is work in American History.

Audrey Horne! <3

Dodie Smith is one of my favorite authors, and I think that I Capture the Castle might be what you are looking for. Also The Secret History (Donna Tartt), if you are looking for something suspenseful and more modern, is excellent. One heroine is 17 (but it's the 30's) and the protagonist of Secret History is…

Thank you for this. As a slow walker (not a dawdler, but not Manhattan either), I often "pull over" to let people pass. I will also wait and let people pass me if they need to chug up the stairs and I'm not in a hurry.

That doesn't even make sense. This is clearly something that is bothering her. I have been with my partner for five years and married for 2 and a half. Without a doubt, when there has been this ongoing nagging thing that has bothered either him or me but doesn't seem like a big deal when viewed logically, it WAS a…

I totally think this is worth a discussion and maybe putting your foot down. He sounds like he is 99.9% amazing but in this instance, he is being a jerk. You deserve to tell your story to other people and he needs to know that by not letting you tell, he's also reinforcing totally ridiculous gender roles that make…

The fourth- three hundredth times have something to do with sex and/or requiring male babies, right?

That is an excellent point, and one I need to think about. Perhaps I'm holding female writers to different standards than male writers, which sucks for everyone involved.

I am totally on board with the "do what you want" thing, but also understand about rigid societal rules. It may sound terrible and dishonest, but could you pop the question in the lovely way that you want to and then plan together his "proposal"? That second proposal could be as ridiculous as ever. On bended knee…

I'm a little squishy on the romance front, but I HELLA agree on all of those things. Money, what to do with taxes, and credit issues are such a big freaking deal! I keep hearing horror stories of people who have been divorced for years getting fallout on their ex-spouse's bankruptcy problems, for instance. My…

How did you deal with it? Did you come up with a pithy stock response or did you just deal until marriage time?

Oh good luck and good luck! It can be a minefield, being a lady proposing to a man. Mine and I had our first real fight over his ridiculous notion that 1)he had to do it and 2)it had to be at the perfect time and in the perfect place because 3)we needed some kind of ridic story to tell people or something. That…

Yes, thank you! Thank goodness they have "invisible." I don't like feeling anxious that my cousin or ex boyfriend or rando person I had lunch with once is going to be like "WHAT UP LOL" when I'm just logging in for five minutes to check my damn email.

Well, YES it's the fault of publishing companies, and not just in terms of gender, but also in terms of race and ethnicity. If you haven't already watched Nigerian author Chinamanda Achebe's TED Talk "Danger of a Single Story," you should. She addresses a lot of that, and why it's so hard to see diversity in what is…

I loved Blackout. Be forewarned, though- some people have argued that it and the sequel, All Clear, should have been one book- that they were a little long-winded. Also that Blackout ends on kind of a weird note and that there are some mysteries that won't get tied up till near the end of All Clear.

After we had our marriage discussion, which culminated in us deciding to be engaged but worry about dates later, we went out for pie (it was terrible pie, but it was also around 10 PM). Then, that weekend, we went to an antique shop with a lot of rings in cases with a $30-per-ring budget, decided upon on the way, and…

*blushblush* Well shucks. Also, just made my day! I love turning people onto my favorite authors!

Kindred is amazing and everyone should read it. Especially anyone who is a white guy and thinks that if they lived in the slave-holding South that they would totally pull a John Brown or something. However, it is deep and thought-provoking and emotionally devastating but NOT witty or satirical, or in any way fluffy.

Exactly.

I think the point is that Laura F. Person is still being forced to go by P.J. Manlyman, and probably make the main character of her book a man, as long as she wants to be taken seriously (and not called "women's fiction" and put in the pink section) and have her books reviewed and read by men and women alike.