Today was my most challenging reading and blogging day of the entire year. I'm extremely tired today, for reasons which I won't go into because it's a really boring story, and so I spent most of the day trying to stay awake enough to read today's book.
Today's book, "Preparations are in place for Charlotte Chayter's eightieth birthday party. She does not want all the fuss, but her daughter, Glenda, has made all the arrangements befitting the lady of the local manor house. Three of her four children still live in the neighborhood and will be there as well as her granddaughter Elvira, whom she has not seen in 10 years. Elvira was a wild child who lived with Charlotte when not at boarding school, instead of with her beautiful jet-setting mother. Charlotte is looking forward to seeing her prodigal granddaughter, while the rest of the family fumes over the fact that Elvira's mother will not attend. Elvira, 26, has her own reason for returning, and faces the family function with apprehension as she is not the hoyden they think she is. Charlotte isn't the least bit worried about Elvira; it's her own children and the problems and potential scandal surrounding them that concerns her. Hylton offers a glimpse behind the facade of the staid English gentry, steadily drawing readers into her rich family saga."
Shallow - and very tired - thoughts:
- I wasn't crazy about today's book. It wasn't horrible, but I didn't necessarily like it either. But please take that with a grain of salt dear readers because when I'm tired I become like a toddler, I dislike everyone and everything and all I want is to curl up with a blanket and watch cartoons. I'm going to put today's book on my list of books that I want to read again when the year is up, just so I can be sure if it's the book I disliked or just my mood affected how I felt about it.
- There was one part of the book that I'm sure I'll still dislike even when I'm rested, and that's the part where one character used the word-that's-not-really-a-word, allus in place of always. I can't stand it when authors use dialect to the point where it becomes cumbersome. That didn't happen too much throughout the book, but just enough to start to annoy me. But, thankfully the author refrained from trying to show us just how a cute a child is by making that character lisp. And for the record authors of the world, that might be cute on a real child, but it is NOT cute in any way with a fictional child.
- There were several points during the book when my lack of sleep really starting to become a problem. For instance, when I got to the sentence that mentioned a funeral and I couldn't remember reading the part about anyone dying - leaving me thinking, What? Someone died? When the hell did that happen? Needless to say, it became necessary for me to go back and reread some of the earlier chapters. I think medicine companies need to revise their recommendations for medications that produce drowsiness: Do not drive, operate heavy machinery, or read a book for your blog while taking this medication.
