Today's book, "With young Bitsy Wentworth's nose-shattering blow to her philandering husband Claude's handsome face (motive: self-defense; weapon: frozen rack of baby back ribs), West launches this warm chronicle of three generations of Southern female eccentricity and spunk. It's August 1972, and Claude is out cold, so Bitsy flees Crystal Falls, Tenn., with their baby, Jennifer, a move that will lose her custody of (though not contact with) her daughter while setting in motion her evolution from girl-wife to worldly interior decorator 20 years later."
Shallow thoughts:
- In my continuing quest to reach my goal of 100,000 pages by the end of the year, I ended up reading a really, really long book today (528 pages to be exact) which made it hard to fit in my daily allotment of Brady Bunch episodes. But rest assured dear readers, I still managed it. Nothing stands in between me and the Bradys. At some point in the last few months I made a vow that I would never read another 500 page book in a day again, but it's crunch time now and I'm not going to make it to the goal without several really long books this month. So now the thing that I am looking forward to the most when the year is up is reading a long book and taking several days to do it. Other things on my list of things I'm looking forward to post-project: 1. the first time I wake up and realize that I don't have to read and being able to have the luxurious feeling again of reading just because I feel like it. 2. the first time I read a terrible book and I don't have to finish it and 3. the first holiday when I get to just kick back, enjoy the day, and not have to read a thing.
- Today's book was decent, but not great. It was the kind of book that was enjoyable enough to read once, but not good enough that I would want to keep it and read it again. In an effort to keep the entire house from being overrun with books, I keep only the books which I know I will want to read again. So, after reading a book, I have to ask myself "Is this book shelve-worthy?" - and sadly, today's book is not. The characters were interesting, and the basic plot was decent, but there was too much other stuff (that was unnecessary to the main plot) thrown in that was distracting from that, and I don't believe I would want to wade through all of that again just to get to the good parts.
- Favorite sentence, "If I'd known I was going to become a girl sleuth, I would have eaten something more soothing, like chicken salad on toast - that's what Nancy Drew preferred." - Ahh, I love a good reference to Nancy Drew, a series I now have a great deal of affection for after having read it for the blog. I continue to be a total nerd when it comes to that sort of thing, getting excited any time a book mentions another book I love. This is something that I routinely mock my Mother for - as she sits there, brimming with excitement because the people on Brothers & Sisters have the same lamp that she does.
- Most annoying expression used in the book: "a girlie-girl" - this is one of my all time pet peeves. It's like nails on a chalkboard for me when someone uses that expression. The only expression that annoys me more is, "he's all boy." I look back with wistful nostalgia to the days when those two expressions were not commonly used. I would be the happiest woman on earth if we, as a people, could permanently strike those two expressions from our vocabulary.
