{"id":4340,"date":"2017-10-09T05:00:50","date_gmt":"2017-10-09T12:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=4340"},"modified":"2017-10-08T17:37:35","modified_gmt":"2017-10-09T00:37:35","slug":"mark-reads-how-lovely-are-thy-branches-chapter-3-part-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2017\/10\/mark-reads-how-lovely-are-thy-branches-chapter-3-part-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads &#8220;How Lovely Are Thy Branches&#8221;: Chapter 3, Part II"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the second half of the third chapter of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153How Lovely Are Thy Branches,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Filif\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s decoration is complete, and Nita gives her gift to Kit. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read <i>Young Wizards<\/i>.\u00c2\u00a0<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>I am actually struggling to remember what ornaments we used that were homemade. For the most part, we had like three boxes of plain (but multi-colored) glass or aluminum bulbs that would go up on our tree, and there were a tiny number of custom or expensive bulbs that NO ONE was allowed to put on the tree but our mother. They could break!!!<\/p>\n<p>Aside from that, there were a couple of bulbs decorated with glitter that we made, and there was a single Christmas tree made out of popsicle sticks, glitter, and Elmer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s glue that somehow survived longer than <i>literally everything else<\/i>. The last time I saw a tree at my parents\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 place, it still hung on proudly on it. I think I made it, but it might have been my brother. Anyway, I am still considering getting my own tree this year. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve actually never had one of my own, but I also don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have any ornaments. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d have to buy everything from scratch, and something tells me that deep down, all I would do is buy nothing but really expensive themed ornaments in the <i>Star Wars <\/i>universe.<\/p>\n<p>DON\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T JUDGE ME.<\/p>\n<p>I am also in awe at Nita\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gift-giving ability. I really do think that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a skill because, in general, giving gifts is <i>really hard<\/i>. I would like to think that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m pretty decent at it, and all my previous partners have gotten some dope gifts. (They haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t always been appreciative of them, but that is another story, and I refuse to make any of this review negative because it is CELEBRATION TIME.) I love things that are both practical and meaningful, so I try to pay attention to things a person mentioned that they liked earlier in the year so that I can RULE THEIR LIFE.<\/p>\n<p>But let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just take a moment to acknowledge how meaningful this gift was for Kit. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m glad there is canonical confirmation that Kit knew that Ponch was in Takaf, and that makes the ornament even more emotional. Nita got something that was truly unique to him, that acknowledged his interest in Mar <i>and<\/i> the shared experience he had with Nita, and that reminded Kit of his beloved dog. She hit like EVERY emotional point on a checklist of Good Gift Giving! SHE IS LIKE GOD-LEVEL TIER, OKAY.<\/p>\n<p>And I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m basing that solely on the gift she gave Kit. If Carmela and her succeed in getting Filif those candles\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 seriously. That will make her the greatest gift-giver of all the time. Sorry, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make the rules, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s how it is.<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/youtu.be\/E5zYe3A2_-U<\/p>\n<p><b>Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n<p>&#8211; <strong>My YA contemporary debut, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.markoshiro.com\/blog\/2017\/9\/22\/i-am-proud-to-announce-my-ya-contemporary-debut-anger-is-a-gift\">ANGER IS A GIFT<\/a>, is now available for pre-order!\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong><strong>If you&#8217;d like to stay up-to-date on all announcements regarding my books, <a href=\"http:\/\/eepurl.com\/ey636\">sign up for my newsletter<\/a>! DO IT.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the second half of the third chapter of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153How Lovely Are Thy Branches,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Filif\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s decoration is complete, and Nita gives her gift to Kit. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Young Wizards.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[534,510],"tags":[513,511],"class_list":["post-4340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interim-errantry","category-young-wizards","tag-diane-duane","tag-mark-reads-young-wizards"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4340\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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