Consumables #79

Ok, so I just looked back at the bloggie and I haven't talked about books for months! MONTHHHHS. What sort of cockamamie librarian am I? I mean, honestly. What in the Sam Hill is going on around these parts?

To be fair, one major thing that has been going on around here, of course, is the fact that my reading habits were majorly stymied after my dad died. I wasn't sleeping, I wasn't eating, and for the first time in my literate life, I wasn't reading. At first it was because I just wasn't able to focus on anything for more than a few minutes due to extreme SPACEY-NESS which has nothing to do with Kevin Spacey although I kind of want it to be related to that, but rather a much-increased talent for glassy-eyed staring. Then when the Kevin Spacey-ness wore off a little bit I just sort of started avoiding reading because one of the great pleasures of reading in my life, for me, has been talking about books with my dad. And the thought of reading something and not calling my dad to talk about it was kind of unbearable to me. Then, some friends of mine said that they were going to do "Infinite Summer," which, if you haven't heard of that, is a thing that people do where they take a whole summer to form a book club just in order to read Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace, which is a honkin' 5 million pages long (ok, so it's 1200 pages or so but same diff). And I gathered my non-reading, Kevin Spacey, glassy-eyed self and said SIGN ME UP. Because, hey! I haven't been able to page through anything for weeks and weeks but a book the size of Dwayne Johnson's beefy left buttock? SURE THING GUYS!

Good news: it did get me reading again. I read about 75 pages, just because all my friends were doing it. And then that made me think: hey! I can read again! HOORAY FOR PEER PRESSURE! Kids, peer pressure can be really an awesome thing, is what no one tells you. Anyway. After 75 pages, I really, really, truly, hand-over-heartedly, did not want to read another goddamn page of that goddamn book. At least right now. I keep reading blogs and articles that say you really have to read through page 200 before shit gets good. And I understand that 200 pages out of 1200 is really not that far into the whole dang thing. BUT. I think that in my current state of affairs, asking me to wait 200 pages of having feelings of Totalis Snoozefestius is kind of asking too much of me, at this juncture. So, I am declaring Infinite Summer over for me. Sad horns!

However, I have moved on to many other books that are a reasonable amount of pages (I mean, honestly 1200 pages? GET TO THE POINT DUDE) and although I still have this visceral feeling of wanting to pick up the phone and talk to my dad about them, I am dealing with it. I still have you guys to talk bookishness with! For this time, I'll forgo my usual lightning round of books and just do one. I'll catch you up with more soon.

Eleanor and Park, by Rainbow Rowell
My friend Alli had a guy friend in high school named Steve and they were majorly in love with each other, only they didn't really say anything about it. They were friends, and weren't dating, but their underwear practically went up in flames when they were around each other. They would watch movies together at her house and they didn't make out or anything but they did this thing that can only really be described as petting each others' faces. Like, can you picture what that means? They would caress each other, on the face. AND THAT IS IT. To this day that is the funniest, weirdest shit I can think of and I adore it so much. Such pent up sexy feelings and no way to express them! I GUESS I WILL PET YOUR FACE? CAN WE MAKE THAT A THING? Anyway, this book will make you think about being in love as a teen because it's intense, and overwhelming, and really powerful. I have seen some reviewers say that they didn't like it because they don't see how the two characters could fall so hard and so fast for each other which, ha-what? You must not have been hanging with the teens I know (or the teen I was). It is achingly nostalgic. So much so that I think teen readers will like it but adult readers will lurve it. It is charmingly funny at some points too. Not as funny as heavy-face-petting, but funny.

More books on deck soon! Lates, my pretties!