It's that magical time again dear readers, time for the end of the week count.
For the week:
CHAPTERS - 160
PAGES - 1,649 (I never thought I would say this after a week of reading over a thousand pages, but that number seems kind of low, I guess I've been flaking off too much this week.)
CHAPTERS - 3,591
PAGES - 45,850
I picked today's book because I found the cover amusing - although after spending 43 minutes trying to get the picture of the cover onto my blog I'm not feeling as amused - now I'm just feeling like I hate my computer and I never want to have to see the picture of today's cover ever again as long as I live. But I hope that those of you who haven't been staring in frustration at the picture for 43 minutes will enjoy it.
Today's book, "Written in side-splitting and often cringe-inducing detail, Paul Feig takes you in a time machine to a world of bombardment by dodge balls, ill-fated prom dates, hellish school bus rides, and other aspects of public school life that will keep you laughing in recognition and occasionally sighing in relief that you aren't him. Kick Me is a nostalgic trip for the inner geek in all of us."
Shallow thoughts:
- I seem to have a theme going this week, yesterday I read a book about a crappy childhood and today I'm reading a book about a crappy adolescence - I guess this means that tomorrow I'm going to have to read a book about a crappy adulthood, followed by a book about a really crappy death on Friday. Just kidding dear readers, I promise I'll read something happy tomorrow - I don't think I can handle three unhappy books in a row. I didn't have much to say about yesterday's "I had a crappy childhood" memoir because I had a really happy childhood and so I had a hard time relating to it - but a "my adolescence was horrible" book, now that's something I can relate to.
- There's no point in even trying to pretend that I don't have an inner geek that related to this book because I've already admitted that I own all five season of The Brady Bunch on DVD, so I'm pretty much the head geek right about now. And I'd like to say I had no geekiness when I younger but unfortunately I had a really bad allergy problem from 5th through 8th grade which necessitated me carrying a box of Kleenexes with me everywhere I went, resulting in me being known around school as "that girl with all the Kleenexes" (oh how I wish I was making that up for dramatic effect.) And if not for those last two shreds of dignity that I'm attempting to cling to I would show you a few school pictures that can back up my claims at geekiness - one that involved an attempt to curl my hair in which one side lost it's curl completely about 2 minutes before picture time while the other side held the curl perfectly so it ended up looking like the two sides of my hair were completely different lengths and styles, and the other involving an attempt at "The Rachel" haircut which unfortunately had about 15 layers too many and made me look more like a boy from the 70s than a girl from the 90s.
- I'm going to have to disagree with the part of the book description that promises a "side-splitting" read. Why do they do that, why do they go so over-the-top with their promises (and by the way, I'm not really sure who "they" is in this scenario)? It just sets the readers up to be disappointed. It would be so much better if they would just level with us from the beginning and say "So this book isn't going to be a laugh riot, it's still a good book and there are a lot of amusing parts." Okay, so it's not as catchy as claiming a book is "side-splitting" or "breathtakingly beautiful" - but at least it's honest. So if you decide to read this book I would strongly advise you ignore the description on the back of the book, and go into reading it expecting it to be an amusing book and not the funniest book you'll ever read - I would also strongly advise that you skip over chapter three if you have a weak stomach because there are some graphic descriptions about throwing up at school. I'm all in favor of adding the gritty details of live to make a story come alive, but some details are a little too gritty for my taste - isn't it enough that we've all had to live through that stuff, do we have to hear about other people living through it too. It reminds me of when reality shows have a "We're going to the dentist" episode (and for some reason a lot of them do) and I just sit back and think Isn't it enough we have to put up with crap like that in real life, why do these morons think we want to experience it a second time on TV?"
And now it's time for another magical blogging moment, when I try to manipulate my dear readers into leaving more comments then they normally would have by asking pointless questions: Internet show of hands, who here was a geek as a teenager? Or maybe it would be quicker to ask who wasn't.
