Today is the end of week 21, so it's chapter and page count time.
For the week -
CHAPTERS - 184
PAGES - 1,893
For the year so far -
CHAPTERS - 3,136
PAGES - 40,599
I had an incredibly busy today between work stuff I had to get done and working on the cookbook that I'm writing, so I didn't get around to starting today's book until 6 o'clock. I've never started a book that late in the day before, and it was oddly exhilarating (in a tame, boring, Midwestern sort of way). It gave me that feeling that I used to get in elementary school when I would forget to do my homework the night before so I had to quickly get it done on the bus on the way to school (I told you it was a tame, boring way). There were moments when I was sure that I wouldn't get the book done, but I was on an "I just figured out how to make wheat-free, dairy-free, egg-free, refined sugar-free muffins and they actually taste good" high and so I was too happy to care about how stressful it was to try to read a book that late in the day. But for the record dear readers, I'm never EVER going to try that again.
Today's book, "Cedar was a child of the Summer of Love. But the story she tells is about much more than time and place; it is about the universal truths of mothers and daughters, love and betrayal, resilience and loss. Together Cedar and her mother, Sara, survive the misadventures of communal living in the sixties - and growing up in an era of uncertainty: the disappearance of Cedar's father, learning the word "hippie" from the children at school, and the jealousy that ultimately turns their idyllic world to ashes. . . "
Shallow thoughts:
- Why do the people who write book descriptions end them with . . . ? Are they just the kind of melodramatic people who walk around pretending to smoke fake cigarettes and they can't help themselves? Or do they think we'll be more likely to want to read the book if they refuse to finish the sentence? Or maybe they think that we're so stupid that we can't figure out that there's more to the book than just the description unless they hold the end of the sentence for literary ransom? It's almost as if they're coming right out and admitting that there's very little substance to the book, so little that the back of the book can sum it all up for us, so they have to leave off the end part to make us want to read the book. Well lucky for them I don't usually bother to read the whole description before picking up a book - otherwise I would have been so annoyed by the . . . that I wouldn't have bothered reading the book (because I'm petty that way).
- Please excuse my rambling dear readers, that was just my little attempt at stalling so I wouldn't have to figure out what to say about today's book. The whole time I was reading this book I was thinking Crap, what am I going to say about this book. I'm coming up empty - there were no amusing parts, no passages that stood out more than others, nothing that provoked a strong enough reaction from me to make me want to write about it. It wasn't badly written necessarily - and by that I mean that it didn't bore me into a coma - but I didn't think any of the characters were believable. The lives of the main characters were crumbling all around them and they all have the attitude of "Whatever - no big deal." How on earth am I supposed to care about what happens to the characters when they don't even care what happens? Whenever I read books where the characters are all reserved and detached that the author wants me to find them sophisticated and worldly, but all it makes me feel is annoyed. I just want to climb into the book slap them all and say to them Grow a heart tin man. And by the way, having no feelings about anything does not make you appear worldly and mature.
And now dear readers, I'm going to go eat one of the Morning Glory muffins that I made today. And if you're wondering why I felt the need to share that will all of you, it's because it makes me deliriously happy to be able to write out the sentence "I'm going to eat a muffin." Welcome back to my life muffins, I've missed you. And yes, I really do talk to my food like that - and you would too if you'd lived in a muffin-free world as long as I have.
