Recommendations

It is scary to recommend a book.

It's hard not to feel like a book says a lot about you - what you like, what you value, what you spend your time on - and to hand it to someone else feels like you're saying "This is me. Don't come back and say 'I hated it.'"

Oh, am I too paranoid? (NEVER!)

After I praised The Wednesday Wars up and down, a friend of mine, who I deeply admire, bought three copies of it to read with her two oldest children (ages 15 and 12).

About two weeks ago, this friend told me she'd finished reading it aloud with her son (the 12 year old) and when they finished he said, "This is my new favorite book."

As you can imagine, I breathed a massive sigh of relief.

Then, about a week ago, Bart and I went to the library and he said, "I need some books on CD to listen to while I drive to and from campus" (as I'm no longer driving with him every day, he clearly needed something to replace my gripping and brilliant conversation (otherwise known as me falling asleep in the front seat)). I pulled about five books from the shelves, ones that I'd loved and thought he might enjoy, and he picked The Wednesday Wars.

After a day or two, he said "You know, I'm enjoying it, but I'm not sure I'll like it as much as you did."

In some cases, this might have filled me with dread, but I have so much faith in this book that I didn't even mind. And sure enough, as each day passed, Bart would say, "This book is so good. I can see why you love it. 'Toads! Beatles! Bats!'" He finished it today and told me he loved it. That it made the commute something to look forward to instead of dread. That it makes him less bothered by traffic or poor drivers on the road.

I may or may not have done a victory lap.

I have never thought of this blog as a book review blog. I don't review everything I read and I never plan to (since a huge portion of my reviews would then be something like, "meh, not terrible, not great"). I try to write only about books that I feel strongly about (mostly strongly in a positive way, although sometimes a truly terrible book needs to be ranted about at length) or that I would recommend to a close friend.

And because I know a lot of the people who read my blog personally, I try and be careful to be clear about what kind of book it is - is it a Wednesday Wars, appropriate for practically any audience? Or is it a Graceling? Great story, but definitely for a more mature audience? Is it one that has wide wide appeal or will it have a smaller audience?

It's hard for me not to second guess what I've thought a book when I read reviews that are very different from mine - if someone whose taste I admire hated a book I praised or someone I love adored a book I could not stand.

There just is no accounting for taste, obviously. I'm just doing the best I can.

Tell Me What to Read: Round 2

Was it just me or did July race by? (Whoa, just sounded like an old person there, accidentally).

Anyway, Round 2! Time to tell me what to read in August.

A few people asked last time how I picked the winner; I put the number of comments in a random integer generator and then whatever number between 1 and 32 (that's how many suggestions there were last time) came up, I counted down to that comment and, ta-da! Winner! Ding ding ding!

It can be any genre, any age level, and have been published last week or three hundred years ago. You can pick it because it's a book that everyone should read or because it changed your life or because it is great literature or just because it entertained you. You can DEFINITELY suggest the same book you suggested last month.

Here's how it goes:

1. Comment with the title of one book you think I should read (any book you want). One title only, please, lest my brain explode.
2. On the last day of the month, I'll select one comment at random.
3. On the off-chance that I've already read the book you select, I'll contact you and ask for a follow-up suggestion (make sure there is a way to contact you either by blog or email).
4. I'll get a copy of the book and read it by the end of August.
5. I'll write a review of it here. Even if I hate the book, I will not hate you.

And. . .go!

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

8 of 10: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
was just what I like in a book - history, interesting characters, a little mystery, and some romance. For all that, though, it is at its heart, a quiet book.

I won't lie, people. Catching Fire sort of ruined all other books for me temporarily. What can possibly compare? Fortunately, I read this book prior to Catching Fire, so it wasn't tainted by the lack of Katniss, Peeta, and Gale.

My mom bought this book at the airport on her way to London at the suggestion of the book seller and read the entire thing, then started back at the beginning and read it again immediately. So, you can draw your own conclusions about whether or not she liked it.

The book is written entirely in letters (which initially totally turned me off to even opening the book because I don't generally enjoy books written in letter or diary form). The first few are between Juliet and her best friend's brother, Sidney. World War II has just ended and Juliet wrote a humorous column all through the war which has now been published in a book and has been surprisingly successful (Sidney is her publisher). Now, of course, they want her to write another book, but she finds herself completely devoid of inspiration.

While she's touring for her book, she gets a letter from a man named Dawsey, who had bought a book she once had owned (and then sold to a second hand bookstore). He lives on the Island of Guernsey which was occupied by the Nazis for the entire war and he'd read this book numerous times during the occupation and now wants to know if the author had written anything else and where he could find them.

Juliet strikes up a correspondence with Dawsey and discovers that he's part of a book club called, you guessed it, "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society." She's intrigued and starts writing back and forth with a number of the members, learning more about life on Guernsey during the occupation and, in particular, about the unofficial leader of the society, the brave and adored Elizabeth.

It took me a bit to get into the book and if it hadn't been for my mom's introduction to the book helping me remember who Juliet and Sidney were and what the basic jist of the book was, I might have just put it aside. And I am really glad I didn't - this book is absolutely delightful. I loved all of it.

It's not a book for everyone, though. My friend, Kelly, a fellow librarian and someone who likes many of the same books as I do, deeply disliked it. I never did manage to get many of the secondary characters straight and I just didn't bother making the effort.

On the other hand, this book has been at the top of the NYT best-seller list for ages and has earned rave reviews from many many people and publications. I guess it's like "Eat, Pray, Love." Some people adore it, other people (um, like me) can't stand it.

This one, I happened to adore.

Festival!

This fall there will be the Ninth Annual National Book Festival in DC.

Laura Bush started it up, with the help of the Library of Congress, while George Bush was president, modeling it on the very successful Texas Book Festival she started in Austin when GWB was governor here (have I mentioned she and I are both alumni of the School of Information at UT? We're practically twins).

Anyway, with the Bush family no longer in DC, there was a lot of talk about whether or not the National Book Festival would go on, but at the end of May, President and Mrs. Obama announced they would act as honorary chairs for the event and it would go forward as before. Since this is the first year I'd live close enough to actually consider going, there were some quiet cheers from my direction at this announcement.

The cheers were louder, though, two weeks ago, when they announced the author lineup. You can check out the whole list here, but I was particularly thrilled to see Shannon Hale, Kadir Nelson, Jeannette Walls, Lois Lowry, Sharon Creech, and Ken Burns on the list. And that's just the tip of the iceburg.

As we drove home that night from school and work, I told Bart, "I'm going to fly down for the day. It's only a $39 direct flight from Boston to DC. Do you want to come?"

I wasn't sure he'd want to, but to my joy, he immediately said, yes, that he wanted to come.

And then when I got on to Southwest to buy the tickets, I discovered that we had enough leftover credit from all the times I've cancelled and rebooked tickets at lower prices, or swapped free tickets for paid tickets (yes, I spend an unhealthy amount of time on Southwest, I'll admit) to cover the cost of both tickets entirely. Plus some. So our trip is completely paid for.

I am beside myself with joy at the idea of hopping on a plane in the morning, flying down to DC with my darling husband, spending the day hearing authors I love speak and hopefully meeting a few, and then flying home in time for a late dinner and then snuggling down into my own bed.

East Coast, you've already won me over.

Late Summer Reading

Texas has these book lists that a group of librarians decide on each year. And there are a lot of them (truly, everything is bigger in Texas): they have the 2x2 list for ages 2 to grade 2, the Bluebonnet list for 3-6 graders, the Lone Star list is for 6-8 graders, and the TAYSHAS list is for high school students.

The Bluebonnet list is unique because if a student reads 5 of the books on the list, they can vote for their favorite title and then the winner is announced for the whole state. It's a pretty big thing here, at least in the schools and libraries I have any exposure to, and I think it's a great program.

Massachusetts (a state that I finally can spell without the help of spell check, thank you very much) has a similar program, cleverly called the "Massachusetts Children's Book Award" for 4-6 graders. Having watched the Bluebonnet program go so well at the school I did my student librarian-ing at, I am planning to run the same kind of program at my elementary schools this year.

Which means I need to read all the books on the list before school starts so I can booktalk them early in the year.

This is the 2009-2010 list for the Massachusetts Children's Book Award:

The Castle Corona by Sharon Creech
Elijah Of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis
The Lemonade War by Jacqueline Davies
The London Eye Mystery by Siobhan Dowd
Goldwhiskers (Spy Mice) by Heather Vogel Fredrick
Barack Obama: Our 44th President by Beatrice Gormley
Found (The Missing, Book 1) by Margaret Peterson Haddix
Horns and Wrinkles by Joseph Halgerson
Billy the Fish by Charlie James
Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat by Lynne Jonell
Weedflower by Cynthia Kadohata
The Green Glass Sea by Ellen Klages
Swindle by Gordon Korman
Rules by Cynthia Lord
The Big Field by Mike Lupica
Abby Takes a Stand by Patricia McKissack
Out of Patience by Brian Meehl
How to Steal a Dog by Barbara O'Connor
Bread and Roses, Too by Katherine Paterson
Pizza, Pigs, and Poetry: How to Write a Poem by Jack Prelutzky
Simon Bloom, the Gravity Keeper by Michael Reisman
Paint The Wind by Pam Munoz Ryan
Araminta Spookie 1: My Haunted House by Angie Sage
Listen! by Stephanie S. Tolan
Feathers by Jacqueline Woodson

Embarrassingly, I haven't even heard of many of these books, but I'm working my way through them now. Three down, 22 to go. Any suggestions on which ones are awesome and should be read first? Because, clearly, I should put off the more dull ones until the very bitter end.

Thursday

Today I can't believe:

• I have a masters degree
• I'm moving to Boston in just over three weeks
  
• it is so stressful to decide what stuff to leave and what to take when we move
  
• the cat ran away from the house we are staying at (they said it was okay)
• anything is worth reading after Catching Fire
• I'm going to go back to cold weather
• I subscribe to 286 blogs in Google Reader
  
• I'm going to live less than 2 miles from the Atlantic Ocean
• I am almost 24
• that Kayla doesn't use Twitter
  
• I haven't had my hair cut in about six months
• Bart and I have been married almost four years
  
• people can spend money without thinking about every last penny
• our house is sold and thus no longer our house
• I didn't eat two blueberry banana muffins for breakfast
• how sore I am from kickboxing on Tuesday
• how much I love the Internet
• ALA's Midwinter conference is conveniently located in Boston this year.
• that my fingernails grow at the speed of light
• I haven't had any fast food in six months and 23 days
• how good the smells coming from Wendys are
  

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

TOTALLY SPOILER-FREE (unless you haven't read The Hunger Games, in which case, yeah, there are loads of spoilers here).

10 of 10: You couldn't ask for a better follow-up to The Hunger Games. There is no middle-of-the-trilogy slump here. I'd say Catching Fire was even better than the first book, incredible as that is.

For me, the sign of a really really good book is when I periodically have to leap off the couch, throw the book aside, and scream to the empty house, "OH MY WORD! This book is so so so good!" I must have done that twenty-five times yesterday, which I'm sure delighted Bart as he was trying to study.

I didn't mean to read this all in one day. I figured it'd take me at least two. And when noon rolled around and I'd only just cracked it and then I had to leave for a few hours, I thought there was no way I'd finish it. And yet, I did. The pages just flew by.

In The Hunger Games, I had a good feel for how the book would go, seeing as the back cover explained how the Hunger Games came about, how Katniss got picked to go, and then how she is in the Games to play to the death. Sure, you don't know all the details about Prim or Peeta and those are certainly surprises, but I think I can safely say that most people have a good feel for the general story arc going in. Right?

This book, I had absolutely no idea what was going to happen. Basically all that the various blurbs I've read say is that the Capitol is pretty angry at Katniss (and, by extension, Peeta) for getting the upper hand at the end of the Games and now they want revenge. And that unrest in the districts is building. But I had no clue what the main arc was going to be - would there be a war, some massive showdown with the Capitol, swift deaths, a run into the unknown (a la The Giver), or something else entirely? I just didn't know. And that's a pretty fun way to read a book.

A lot of the hype about book 2 has been the love triangle. I remember people saying a lot about the crazy love triangle in book 1, but, c'mon people. Peeta got 99% of the screen-time and Katniss didn't say all that much about Gale. I demand more from my love triangles.

This one gave me the love triangle I hoped for. It really annoys me when a series presents a main love interest, makes him/her seem amazing and perfect and then, in the next book suddenly makes them in to a world class jerk so that of course they aren't the one the person picks. I wondered if that would be the case in this book, if Peeta or Gale would suddenly and inexplicably turn in to a complete scumbag, and I'd have to be really annoyed.

But no, that's not what happens. Gale is as solid and great and understanding as Book 1 would lead you to believe, and Peeta is just a sweet and perfect as he was in The Hunger Games (Haymitch tells Katniss at one point, "You could live a hundred lifetimes and not deserve him"). Every time Katniss is around Gale, I would think "Oh, pick HIM!" but then she'd be with with Peeta and I'd think, "Wait, no, HIM." The bad thing about a good love triangle is that she can't pick BOTH. Ack. And unlike Twilight, where I basically never thought Bella would pick Jacob for one second, both of these guys were totally possible choices.

Catching Fire gave me that same horrifying feeling towards the end that Hunger Games did, as I suddenly realized I was only twenty pages from the end and there was no chance that there was going to be a big resolution to all the questions the book had laid out. I'd heard from basically every review I read that it was a giant cliffhanger, and I kept hoping that the cliffhanger would be a legitimate one (like at the end of Harry Potter 6 when you just have no idea if Snape is a good guy or a bad guy), rather than a "Harry Potter stood at the edge of a cliff, with Voldemort's wand pointed at him. He knew he was going to die. TO BE CONTINUED IN BOOK 2."

Because, really? That is not a real cliffhanger, since would you have really believed Harry Potter was going to get murdered straight off in the second book? No. Fortunately, Suzanne Collins makes it a real cliffhanger, like the end of The Hunger Games, where there are dozens of questions to be answered and a lot of things still to be resolved and a lot hanging in the balance.

I also heard that if you hadn't read The Hunger Games yet, you should wait until all three books were out to read it, but I totally disagree with that. I didn't close the book thinking, "AHHHHHH, I have to wait at least a year for the next one." Instead I was so thrilled that there is more to this story, that these characters aren't done yet, that this series is not over and closed. If you somehow have missed The Hunger Games thus far, don't wait to get a copy. There is no reason to wait until the last book comes out. Jump on this bandwagon NOW, people.

Overall, I have to say this book was better. Everything about it was just a little stronger, I thought - the characters were richer, the plot twists are more surprising, and it's more funny than The Hunger Games. I laughed a lot, when I wasn't freaking out over the latest plot development.

When I read The Hunger Games in San Francisco last summer, I spent a lot of time walking around the city telling Bart almost page by page what was going on in the book. This time, with the end of school in sight and free-reading time available in just few weeks for him, he won't let me tell him anything about this book because he's planning to read it himself. And it is killing me.

(Also, go check out this super funny comic about Catching Fire).

Why I'll Be on the Couch All Day Long

As if life wasn't good enough already, this came in the mail yesterday:

A million trillion thank-yous to Nancy Pearl Wannabe.

Alternate-Universe Monday

Two weeks ago today, I got an email from the intern coordinator at work asking all the interns to submit their latest GPA, their major, and their date of graduation.

They ask for this every few months, so I've certainly done it before in the 10 months I've been working there. I sent it back, and within minutes I received a reply saying, "Have you already graduated?" I responded that yes, I had. Then silence (hint: foreshadowing/setting the scene/preparing for something ominous).

The next morning, my boss pulled me aside and said, "I got a phone call last night at home saying you were supposed to stop working two weeks after you graduated and that I needed to process your two week notice papers immediately. So, next Friday is your last day."

My boss, her boss, and I had all been under the impression I could work through the summer, even after I graduated, and the intern office had never said anything to the contrary, so it was a bit of a surprise to all of us.

Anyway, here I sit on Monday morning at the kitchen counter in my pajamas, instead of showered, dressed, and at my cubicle like I normally would be at this time on a week day. For the next six weeks until school starts and I take up my post as Great Librarian Overlord, I have virtually no mandatory responsibilities. I'm certainly not complaining, as it's a lovely time to work on the library curriculum for the fall and enjoy our last weeks in Texas, it's just. . .strange.

Three months ago, I was a full-time student, doing a library internship, and holding down three jobs. Six weeks ago, I was down to one job when school ended and two of my jobs (which were school related) finished. Now, I have nothing I have to do.

Time to start crushing Kayla in the page counts, I guess.

Fire by Kristin Cashore

9 of 10: Lovely writing, better pacing, and a great set of characters, Fire left me such more more gratified than Graceling. Also I could not stop staring at the cover - it is gorgeous.

Back in February, I read Graceling which has turned out to be quite a popular book, gathering awards and gushing reviews right and left. As I said in my review, I certainly enjoyed it, but a few things kept me from being able to throw it in my “favorite books” stack. As time passed and I read more reviews, I became increasingly skeptical about the book, and I wondered if I’d really end up reading Fire when it came out. So many books, so little time and all that.

But then, the lovely folks at Penguin sent me an ARC copy of Fire and I took it on the plane trip to Boston. I read about half of it there, and then found myself loving the T and bus rides in Boston because it gave me a chance to finish it. I stayed up late reading it and when I wasn’t reading it, I was thinking about it.

This book is so much better than Graceling.

Fire is the prequel to Graceling and takes place about 30 years earlier in the Dells, a land across a crazy huge mountain range from the one that Graceling takes place in. The only crossover character is a boy with mismatched eyes and the disturbing ability to convince people to believe everything he says (if you’ve read Graceling, you already know it’s the future King Leck).

In the Dells, there are no gracelings. Instead, in addition to the normal population, there are “monster” versions of nearly every animal out there. A “monster” version of an animal has brightly colored fur or hair (a lime green mouse, for instance, or a deep purple mountain lion) and a sense and taste for other monsters.

Fire is a monster human, the last one left. Her hair is red (not like we think of redheads, but actual fire-hydrant red, mixed with pinks and oranges) and she has to keep her hair covered whenever she is outside to keep from being attacked by other monster animals. She also can read people’s minds and control them, convincing them to do or say or do what she wants.

Like Graceling, the whole thing is political, too. The Dells are in major turmoil, most of it brought on by Fire's monster father (now dead) who was the advisor to the king (also now dead) and convinced him to do all sorts of stupid things that nearly ruined the kingdom. The current king and his family are desperately trying to hold the kingdom together as it is threatened by other would-be rulers.

The blurb on the back made it sound like Prince Brigan (the king's brother and the commander of the military) was immune to her mind control powers, but I think that's misleading. She can't control someone's mind if they have a strong mind and keep it closed, and Brigan appears to just have a very strong mind.

There is SO much plot in this book, I could summarize just the basic outset of the book indefinitely, but there's no point in that since Kristin Cashore is such a marvelous writer. Better to just leap into the book and trust her to make it worth reading.

Kristin Cashore has the most fascinating mind, I think; these worlds she comes up with completely engulf me. Also, one of my complaints about Graceling was how uneven it felt to me - some parts were brilliant and fast-paced, while other parts dragged on and on. This book was much more even. It wasn't quite as fast-paced as Graceling, but it definitely moves right along.

I also deeply admire Kristin Cashore's ability to lead you up to a vital plot point without you noticing - she'll spring something on you and suddenly you realize that all the groundwork for this big reveal has been going on for hundreds of pages and you never even saw it coming (or maybe when I say "you," I should say "me;" perhaps you are much brighter than I am, which wouldn't surprise me in the least).

Also, remember how at the end of Graceling, everyone is all "you call that an ending?" This book has more closure than that. Thank heavens.

Finally, I absolutely loved Katsa and Po in Graceling and wondered if this book would even be worth reading since they aren't in it. If you are worried about that too, I think you should rest assured that it's not the case. I loved Fire quite a lot more than Katsa, and Brigan was a top-notch character too (different from Po, but maybe even better). The romance doesn't play out as quickly as it did in Graceling (I thought the romance in Graceling happened too fast and then the book didn't quite know what to do to keep the tension there), which I loved.

Fair warning that this court is rather like King Henry VII's court - there are a lot of love/lust affairs going on. It all pretty much takes place off-stage, but it's definitely not a pre-teen kind of book.

It’s a while until this one comes out, I know (October!), and usually I would wait until it was closer to post about it, but I couldn’t put off sharing my thoughts on it any longer. There is no question in my mind - Kristin Cashore is a far better writer now than she was when she wrote Graceling, and Graceling was pretty darn good.

Princess

I’m not the kind of blogger to link to a lot of other miscellaneous things on my blog. I don’t post about a contest in order to get an extra entry. I don’t mention that you should go sign this petition or vote in that poll or read these ten blog posts.

But, on occasion, there are things worth sharing, things I would email to every one of you if I had all your email addresses, things I would send to my mom with a subject line like “This is so lovely.”

Raising a Princess Single-Handedly, written by Simon Van Booy for the New York Times, is one of those things.

It’s an article for the “Modern Love” column about raising his four-year-old daughter alone after the sudden death of his wife.

He talks about the night after his wife’s death, when his daughter asked to stay up late and watch “Sleeping Beauty.” I know all too well those feelings that come after the death of a family member, when life is both frighteningly normal and yet horrifyingly – and permanently – different. We have never again watched “The Tigger Movie” which Shepard watched the night he died. It still sits in the case in the video cabinet, partly played, never to be rewound from the spot it was last turned off, nearly nine years ago.

My father-in-law, Bart’s stepfather, lost his wife when his daughters were in elementary school and raised them alone until he married Bart’s mom. When Simon writes about learning to cook for his daughter, getting her ready for school, taking over all the kinds of things a mother would more likely be responsible for if she was present, I thought of my father-in-law and his two little girls, now adult women.

Sometimes an article hits a little too close to home. Sometimes it reminds you of things that are painful to remember, but that you want to be reminded of anyway.

Academy 7 by Anne Osterlund

7 of 10: Misleading cover notwithstanding, Academy 7 was a surprisingly enjoyable sci-fi book. If there was a sequel, I'd definitely read it.

I know what you think when you look at this book. You're thinking, "hello, teen romance." And you would have reason to think so; I mean, that cover photo screams romance and then right there on the front it says "an unexpected romance." Except it's not really. There is one kiss on the last page. That's pretty much the extent of the love story.

The real story is about Aerin and Dane. Aerin is rescued from a crashing space ship and the captain takes pity on her, allowing her to take the test to qualify to attend one of the Alliance's schools, even though she's not an Alliance citizen (in fact, she's never even heard of the Alliance, a group of planets trying for peace and stability in the galaxy). She tests really well and gets in to Academy 7, the most prestigious and competitive of the Alliance schools.

The other top student at Academy 7 is Dane and he comes from a very rich family. His dad is one of the top military leaders in the Alliance and his relationship with Dane is deeply strained at best.

He and Aerin are both kind of outcasts at the school, Aerin because she's trying to figure out how to navigate as a citizen without letting anyone know she isn't really a citizen and thus not eligible to be there, and Dane by choice because he doesn't want to be friends with anyone who is only trying to be associated with his rich and successful family.

The story is focused mainly on both of them trying to figure out their parents past. Why is Dane's dad so angry and determined to undermine Dane's success at school? And who was Aerin's dad, anyway, and why did he never talk about his past? Not to mention the fact that she has absolutely no idea who her mom was and her dad would never mention her at all.

It kind of had a Star Wars-y feel to it and it was the perfect book to read on the train in Boston. I just had to keep my hand over the rather embarrassing cover.

Jiggity Jog

You know I love to travel. I love buying a plane ticket, I count down the days until the departure, I think about what I’ll pack, and I love walking into a hotel room.

But the last month has been insane. I went to Las Vegas to stay with my brother while my parents were in Atlanta. Then I came home and, five days later, left for five days at Girls Camp. The day I got home, I showered, threw the contents of my suitcase straight into the washing machine, repacked, and caught a flight to Salt Lake City where we spent the weekend with my extended family for a reunion. I drove back to Las Vegas with my mom on Monday and spent five days with her and my dad. After coming home on Friday night, we packed up our house, closed, and moved in with some friends who are graciously letting us borrow the guestroom for a few weeks, I caught a plane on Wednesday morning to Boston where I spent five days visiting my new schools and principals, taking the licensing exam for the state of Massachusetts, and looking for apartments with my mom.

I’m tired just typing that list out – I can’t believe I actually survived all that travel.

Since June 10, I have spent only 9 full days at home.

I have never been so glad to be back in Austin with no trips in the foreseeable future (the three day drive to Boston in a moving truck is not to be counted). I am in no hurry to log my next Southwest flight, I can tell you that.

Bad Dates

At my family reunion a few weeks ago, a number of the cousins sat around swapping dating stories, which quickly dissolved into “tell us about the worst date you’ve ever had.” It was awesome. When my cousin Emily told us about her 6+ foot, 250 pound date who leaped around the living room, over the couches, and under the piano on his hands and feet (NOT hands and knees) imitating Gollum, we were all in absolute stitches.

I haven’t had a lot of bad dates, fortunately. But I do have one crowd pleaser story, which I pull out on occasion.

During my freshman year at BYU, I went on a few dates with this guy who was also from Las Vegas. We’d had a good time together, and I suspected he was at least marginally interested in me and I was definitely somewhat interested in him (despite having a sort-of boyfriend, but, you know, I was 18 and I didn’t care).

One week, after several dates, he called me up and asked if I wanted to go shooting with him on Saturday morning. I said yes, despite never having shot a gun in my life (that I can remember).

Saturday morning came and he came to pick me at my building. I was waiting in the lobby; he came in and then we walked out to his truck together.

Imagine my surprise when I got into the truck and he said, “This is Jenny, this is Lauren, this is Becca and this is Sidney.”

Yes, there were four other girls in the car. Four!

On our way out to the middle of nowhere, where we could shoot in safety, he stopped to fill up with gas. While he was out of the car, one of the girls said, “So, did any of you know that you weren’t going to be the only one here?” And what do you know; every one of us thought we were going to be lone date.

I can’t remember if we ever went out again, but I will never forget the guts of this guy to ask out five girls and never mention to any of them that they’d be only one of five.

Moving

Last weekend, flying back to Austin from Las Vegas, and knowing we would be closing on our house a few days later, I wrote this, planning to post it yesterday:

Today we sold our house. Our darling brick house. The house that we bought one day before my 21st birthday. The house we imagined we might bring our first child home to (clearly that did not happen). The house we stayed up late painting in the first year we lived there. The house I opened my acceptance letter to UT in. It breaks my heart to say goodbye to this house.

Over the weekend, we’ve finished packing up the house, watching it slowly become more like the bare house we first saw three years ago. The bookshelves emptied out, and then the pictures came off the wall, and then room by room, there was nothing left by walls and wood floors.

We’ve been lucky. I know that. In this terrible market, our house only sat on the market for four days. For the most part, the last four and a half weeks have been pretty smooth to get ready for closing. I had no desire to hang on to the house, to deal with renters, or sudden repairs. The woman who bought it has family in the area, and it makes me happy to know her grandchildren will come to the house and play in the yard or the finished garage. She didn’t make us repaint the dark brown/purple bedroom we’ve loved so much. I’m grateful the house issue, which I’ve worried about for nearly a year, is taken care of and no longer a worry.

But, oh, I want to weep when I think about walking out of that house for the last time. I’ve been so very happy in our house. And now it’s not ours anymore.

It’s all very melodramatic and obviously written by someone who had not yet packed up a three bedroom house into a moving truck and then into a storage unit. It definitely wasn’t written by someone who, at 10:30 p.m. on a weeknight, was scrubbing out the fridge or retouching the paint in the living room or cleaning out the toilet.

Moving has a way of helping you forget how much you loved a place – after all the boxing and sorting and labeling and hauling and cleaning, I was more than ready to walk out and not have to worry about it anymore. Lock that door up for the last time and let’s drive away.

As we walked out of the title company office after closing yesterday, (small) check in hand, Bart said to me, with a huge grin, “We’re no longer home owners!” and I laughed right back. We high-fived in the hallway.

Goodbye, darling brick house. Have a nice life.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

6 of 10: I liked Never Let Me Go well enough, but it never gripped me and I never felt like there was a substantial plot payoff. In my mind, there are better books on this topic.

This was the book RA recommended to me, that sparked the plans for “Tell Me What To Read.”

The title didn’t give me any indication about the topic of the book, so I was surprised when I noticed on the library catalog record that one of the main topics was. . .well, never mind. I don’t want to say because it sort of gives away most of the book, and I don’t think I was supposed to know, which may have been part of why I didn’t love this book. I knew one of the main plot points from the beginning and so I found the unbelievably slow doling out of information about this to be a bit tedious.

The book is narrated by Kathy, who is a “carer,” taking care of donors; during this period of her life (spanning eleven years) she looks back on her schooling at Hinglhim and the friends she made there as they slowly came to realize what their lives had in store for them. The other main characters are her sometimes friend/sometimes rival Ruth and Tommy, who is both Ruth’s boyfriend and someone that Kathy deeply connects with in a way different from her other friends.

I don’t really know how to talk about this book because there is not particularly a big reveal or some huge plot point. Even if you don’t notice the catalog record, you probably will figure it out sooner rather than later. It really is just someone reflecting on her life, a life where she happens to be destined to for something outside her control. I kept thinking that something major was surely going to happen, but as I got closer and closer to the end of the book, I started to realize that maybe there was no major plot twist. The characters sort of exist in a vacuum – there is never much discussion about anything else going on in the world or why things are the way they are.

I can appreciate that there is symbolism and rich themes in the book (such as coming to terms with your lot in life and how you interpret events when you have very little framework with which to do so), but generally I like those to exist in tandem with a gripping plot line too, and I just felt like that was not there.

I never felt particularly invested in any of the characters. I detested Ruth, I felt like Tommy wasn’t all that bright, and I didn’t feel any particularly affinity for Kathy. Oh, it’s hard for me to read a book where no character grabs me.

There was one literary device in this book that made me kind of crazy. Almost every single section of the book (each section being about 1-5 pages, so we’re talking a lot of sections here) would end with a sentence like “but we didn’t really know about Tommy’s problems until the incident in our fourth year.” And then the next section would begin, “In our fourth year, there was an incident with Tommy.” This would have been fine once or twice or even a dozen times, but when it happened probably close to a hundred times, I was just inclined to roll my eyes.

I know it probably sounds like I hated this book, but that’s not true. It was a reasonably quick read and it kept me interested, it just didn’t conclude in a way that satisfied me very much and I feel like I’ve read other books with similar topics that I enjoyed substantially more.

All the World's a Stage

I'm in Vegas again for the week and on Wednesday, my mom and I drove up to Cedar City, UT for the Utah Shakespeare Festival.

If you've never been, or never even heard of it, you are missing out. We've gone nearly every year for the past 15 years and loved every single play we've seen (and we've probably seen 20+ shows there). Each year they do three Shakespeare plays, a musical, and two other plays. In the fall, they do one Shakespeare and two other shows.

Cedar City is about a 3 hour drive from Las Vegas, and we made it in time to have dinner at our favorite little restaurant there, called The Garden House. We used to go every time we went, but it closed down a few years ago and only last year did we discover it had reopened with a new name. Oh, it is terrific.

On Wednesday night, we saw As You Like It, which neither of us had ever seen and which was very charming. The first half was in the inside theater, since it was pouring rain, but at intermission they moved us outdoors to the Globe Theater despite the fact it was still sprinkling pretty hard (I've never been so glad for cheap seats at the back that were right under the balcony and thus protected from the rain).

We spent the night at a gorgeous little bed and breakfast called The Big Yellow Inn, run by, possibly, the nicest couple in the world. We had a delightful time.


And then, yesterday, we saw Foxfire, a show neither of us had ever heard of, but was in the right time slot and, since we'd never seen a dud, we figured we'd take a risk on. And it was terrific. I loved every second of it. The story was interesting, the acting was amazing, and the set was really cool. I would go see it again in a heartbeat.

Sadly, we weren't able to see Henry V, starring our all time favorite Utah Shakespeare actor, Brian Vaughn. I'm attempting not to start scheming ways for Bart and I to fly back just to see it.

Now we're back in Vegas, and I have one last day of fun and frivolity with my parents before it's back to Austin to pack up our entire house for our close date next week. Somehow, Vegas seems more fun.

What I'm Going to Read: Round 1

The big winner (who won nothing) was Crafty Ashley with her suggestion of The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee. However, I'd already read it, so I emailed her back for her second choice and she responded with Life with Picasso. I've already requested it from the UT library and I'll start it next week. I won't pretend I'm not a little nervous about it, but I'm also excited to read something that's somewhat out of my comfort zone (oh, who am I kidding - quite a bit outside of my comfort zone).

The other recommendations:

• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson (Shelly)
• The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down (Julie M. Smith)
• The Professor's House by Willa Cather(Jessica)
• The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows (Anne B. and Karina)
• The Queen's Fool by Phillippa Gregory (Jenny)
• These is my Words by Nancy Turner (Emily)
• Innocent Traitor by Alison Weir (Mellenthin Clan)
• Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand (Heidikins)
• Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy (Norby Family)
• Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood (Kimberly F)
• The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafron (Jess)
• The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King (Lady Susan)
• The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (Science Teacher Mommy)
• Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela (Melanie)
• Night World by L. J. Smith (Liz)
• Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns (Packrat)
• Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier (Holly)
• The Great Starvation Experiment by Todd Tucker (Poodle)
  
• The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (Miri)
• Dave Barry Slept Here: A Sort of History of the United States by Dave Barry (Erin)
• Z for Zachariah by Robert C. O'Brien (Rhiannon)
• The Magician's Assistant by Ann Patchett (Kelly J)
• Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer (Mad Hadder)
• There is No Me Without You by Melissa Greene (Mary)
• The Alchemyst: The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Famel by Michael Scott (Alison)
• The Rag and Bone Shop by Robert Cormier (Angela Noelle)
• My Dirty Little Book of Stolen Time by Liz Jensen (Lenore)
  
• Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier (Angieville)
  

Of those, I've read:

• The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
• Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
  
• The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King
  
• Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
  
• Dave Barry Slept Here: A Sort of History of the United States by Dave Barry
  
• Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer