Hello there! 👋
Welcome to the black hole of my mind. My name is Lindsey (hereafter stylized as “Lnz” or “LNZ”). This blog is a dichotomy between the belief that my opinions do not matter and an egomaniacal compulsion to share them regardless of said belief. I am here to write about books, films, and anything else that might strike my fancy or provoke my ire.
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Why “Lnz Was Here?”
“LNZ” or “Lnz” is how I shorten my name in correspondence with kith and kin. In middle school, I started graffitiing my friends’ notebooks with “LNZ♥ waz here.” I did this incessantly, and I am surprised they will still associate with me because I’m sure it was pretty annoying.
I am now separated by many years from that grade school graffito, and I look back on it nostalgically. It was personal branding before I knew that was a thing; it was my way of leaving my mark. Even if nobody ever found the doodles in their notebooks, it was proof that, once upon a time, a girl that used to be me existed. Her thoughts, feelings, and interests were constantly evolving. But she managed to freeze a tiny aspect of herself so she or someone else could rediscover it with sentimental affection in the future. And that is my primary goal for this blog.
Fun Facts
- Birthday & Age: 13 January. I won’t tell you the year (Never ask a lady her age!), but I’ll begrudgingly admit I’m a textbook example of a Millennial.
- Favorite color: Tiffany Blue
- Diet: I’m an ovo-lacto vegetarian and a ridiculously picky eater. Italian is my favorite genre of food. I pretty much survive on bread, pasta, and cheese. Thankfully, I love hiking enough that I won’t be on My 600-lb Life any time soon.
- The keen observer might have already noticed, but I love fleurons.
- I played the B♭ clarinet throughout middle and high school. I met my saxophone-playing spouse on the marching band bus en route to an away game. I’ll occasionally pull my clarinet out when I get the whim to play.
- I am mostly-closeted weeb trash. That is to say, I might discuss my sometimes cringeworthy Japanophile proclivities online, but I usually keep them under wraps IRL because I am wary of otaku culture.
- I love the original Star Wars trilogy, but I’m not the biggest fan of the Star Wars expanded universe.
- I’m relatively ignorant about popular music. My musical tastes are all over the place and consist primarily of what I picked up from mis padres. Whenever I hear a “new” song, it is likely several months or years old, and I probably heard it from a film or show. My favorite band is ABBA.
- The attentive reader—after noticing most of the links on this page—may speculate that I enjoy Wikipedia deep dives. They would be correct in this assumption.
How I Rate Things
First and foremost, I rate writing and art based on personal enjoyment. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” “taste is subjective,” etc., etc. I am not into feigning expertise and critiquing things such as writing style or pacing unless they egregiously impact the finished product. I’m not a professional editor nor a qualified art critic, and I won’t pretend otherwise. That said, here are more details about my star ratings:
One Star
✭
I may be highly opinionated, but I do not consider myself to be an overly captious person. Even if I don’t like something, I try to be conscientious of the time and energy—not to mention pieces of heart and soul—that creators pour into their work. I tend to roll my eyes at reviews (often riddled with grammatical errors) critiquing writing quality and pacing. It is simple enough for someone who has probably never written anything worthwhile to pick apart something that someone else was courageous enough to release for public consumption.
All this is to say I will rarely give something a one-star rating or review. And if I do, that means I fervently loathed it. I do not believe in censorship ( see “My Views on Censorship” below ), but if you were to ask my opinion about anything I rate with a single star, I would slap it with a “DO NOT ENTER!” warning label. I’m a completionist by nature, so I will almost always finish a book/film/show unless I am ethically opposed to it (in which case, I probably won’t start it at all). But my one-star items are probably something others would mark as “Did Not Finish.”
Two Stars
✭✭
A two-star rating means I did not enjoy the content, and it was a chore to to finish. But there was nothing so reprehensible as to warrant a single star. In short, it was bad but not abhorrent.
Three Stars
✭✭✭
Three stars mean “meh” or “it was just okay.” I may have liked it, but probably not enough to reread or rewatch; if I do, it is likely part of a series that I have given a higher overall rating. I might still recommend three-star items to others who I think will vibe with the story more than I did.
Four Stars
✭✭✭✭
Four-star items are things that I found particularly enjoyable. They captivated me and kept my interest, but they did not have the idiosyncratic oomph factor that merits five stars. There might have been a few minor things I disliked, but overall I was hooked.
Five Stars
✭✭✭✭✭
If it has all the stars, I love it. I adore it beyond all reason. I will go to my grave defending it against any logical arguments others may throw at me because it can do no wrong in my love-blinded eyes. I will probably acquire a physical copy if I don’t own one already.
Books I Will Not Read
I’m typically willing to give any book a shot, with one exception: I will not read anything with the author’s face slapped on the front cover if it professes to be a genre other than autobiography, memoir, or essay collection. If a book with any other genre label has the author’s face on the cover (e.g., religion, self-help, economics, etc.), I presume it is self-serving rubbish and will not partake.
My Views on Censorship
The only censorship I believe in is self-censorship. I think “ knowing thyself ” means an awareness of personal weaknesses and what content should be avoided on an individual level. That does not necessarily mean there is no value in said content or that it deserves universal condemnation...
“All things are permitted, but not all things are of benefit. All things are permitted, but not all things build people up.”
— 1 Corinthians 10:23 (NASB)
My All-Time Favorite Books
More Books I Love:
- Favorite “Christian Life” Books ( For lack of a better classification... These aren’t necessarily religious reading recommendations, but they’re my favorite extra-Biblical books that have been edifying, uplifting, and overall beneficial to my spiritual journey. They are personal supplements to the one and only authoritative Christian Guidebook, i.e., The Bible. )
- Favorite Audiobooks
- Favorite Biographies & Memoirs
- Favorite Comics, Graphic Novels, Manga, Manhwa, Etc.
- Favorite Nonbiographical Nonfiction
- Favorite Series
Favorite Films
Where to Find Me Lurking Online
➺ Goodreads
➺ Letterboxd
➺ The StoryGraph
Thank you for visiting my blog, and I’m honored if you’ve read this entire page of frivolity!
“I think we might do well to remember the oft-quoted (although we aren’t certain who said it first)* maxim: ‘In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; and in all things, charity.’ Of course, we need to define ‘essentials,’ but you get the gist.”
— From The Christian History Almanac, Monday, May 8, 2023
☮ & ♥
