The Maiden, the Guard, and My Mixed Emotions

From Blood and Ash is a book that I believe I originally found recommended to me on TikTok, but a friend recently mentioned it so I thought I would dive into it soon. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it yet, as there are some parts I love and others not so much. As this is the first book in the series I'm going to do what I always do and see the whole series out.

Chosen from birth to usher in a new era, Poppy’s life has never been her own. The life of the Maiden is solitary. Never to be touched. Never to be looked upon. Never to be spoken to. Never to experience pleasure. Waiting for the day of her Ascension, she would rather be with the guards, fighting back the evil that took her family, than preparing to be found worthy by the gods. But the choice has never been hers.

The entire kingdom’s future rests on Poppy’s shoulders, something she’s not even quite sure she wants for herself. Because a Maiden has a heart. And a soul. And longing. And when Hawke, a golden-eyed guard honor bound to ensure her Ascension, enters her life, destiny and duty become tangled with desire and need. He incites her anger, makes her question everything she believes in and tempts her with the forbidden.

As the shadow of those cursed draws closer, the line between what is forbidden and what is right becomes blurred. Poppy is not only on the verge of losing her heart and being found unworthy by the gods, but also her life when every blood-soaked thread that holds her world together begins to unravel.

All of these characters are what is setting me on the line between loving and hating this book. The plot is good and I can follow it easily but I still need to figure out what I think of the characters. As much as I love the growing relationship between Poppy and Hawke, they can both be very annoying at times and that's something that can lead me to disliking the book.

In my opinion, the characters are just as important, if not more important than the plot and I still am very curious about how I will enjoy this series. As for now, its getting a middle rating, in hopes that when I read the other books in the Blood and Ash series they can have higher ratings.

Stars: 3

Spice: 2

#WrongAllAlong: Rethinking Everything I Knew About Social Media

Learning how to navigate social media has always been terrifying to me. I love just scrolling and using it as a form of entertainment, but the background information that goes into it was just not my thing. That was until I took this class. As we started this semester, I came in believing that I knew the ins and outs of social media and that I could easily run a business account, but now that I reflect, I feel that was completely wrong. I had no idea all of the new information I would be learning and how eventually I would actually need to apply it for real!

Posting times? I would have never expected that Sunday is the worst day to post! I am a frequent user of social media, especially on the weekends because I do not have anything else to do. When I learned that some platforms have a better performance rate on weekdays I was completely shocked. The more I've thought about it and the more I see that each platform is the same, it's not as shocking as I originally thought due to the fact that Sunday is typically a religious day and people come home from work or school on the weekdays and want to stay caught up with everything they missed.

Hashtags have been and always will be all the rage. When I was in middle school, it was pretty typical to have as many hashtags as possible in your captions no matter what platform you were posting. The more hashtags the more views right? Wrong! For all social media posts, it's recommended that you use only 1-3 hashtags. This can help narrow down your audience as well as boost your performance due to not overcrowding the caption and tags. Now I'm really going to have to think about what is the most important for me to put into the description of the post to get more views!

Reflecting on everything I've learned this semester, I realize just how much my perspective on social media has changed. What once felt overwhelming now feels manageable. While I used to think social media was all about fun scrolling and spontaneous posting, I’ve come to appreciate how strategic and thoughtful it really needs to be, especially if you're using it for a purpose beyond personal entertainment.

Looking ahead, I feel more confident, not just as a user of social media, but as someone who could actually manage a brand’s online presence. So while I used to be scared of what went on behind the screen, now I see it as an opportunity. And now, I finally feel like I know how to use it.