Oh this book. Oh it hurt my heart. All the time I was reading it and thinking how it reminded me of an illustrated, more grown-up version of There’s a Boy in the Girls’ Bathroom, which I read when I was a little kid. I still tear up slightly when I read There’s a Boy in the Girls’ Bathroom. Don’t judge. Louis Sachar can’t tug on my heartstrings? Junior lives on the Spokane Indian Reservation, where he regularly gets beaten up because he is a weird kid. He has a stutter and a large head and brain damage from being…
28 CommentsReading the End Posts
Okay, so. I didn’t write the Monday BBAW community post where I would say, this blogger is the best! And this blogger is also the best! And so on, and so forth! I didn’t do that because the time slot I had intended to devote to doing that on Sunday, I instead spent suddenly weirdly caring a lot a lot about the Jets/Cowboys game and coming very close to bursting into tears when the Jets won. I don’t care about the Jets. It was the 9/11 anniversary and they kept showing footage of the Tribute in Light, and that was…
32 Comments1. Yesterday morning I killed the m.f. mosquito that kept me from comfortable sleep the last, like, three nights. I wanted to scream war chants of triumph. I hate that mosquito. It was insatiable. I am waiting two more weeks and then I am taking my window unit out of my window and having the super install a screen. Otherwise I know that more mosquitoes will come. It’s been rainy all week. These goddamn mosquitoes. 2. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful Zibilee has told me the title of a book that is the exact book I want to read right now. Wonderful…
54 CommentsHave you ever had the experience of reading a book and being sure throughout most of the book that you know what’s going on, and then you get to the end and you realize that you actually have no idea if you really know what the author is talking about? That was my experience with The End of Everything. As the denouement unfolded, I stopped saying “Yup, yup, yup, yup,” to imaginary Megan Abbott in my head and instead said, “Wait, what were you talking about?” The End of Everything is about a thirteen-year-old girl called Lizzie whose best friend…
30 CommentsMy half-assed, unenthusiastic effort to make myself love books in translation continues apace. Yes, I am aware that it is a very very half-assed effort indeed. No, I would probably not have done anything about it had not Europa contacted me to offer me a copy of An Accident in August for review. (Hey FTC! There’s a disclosure encased in that last sentence, if you care to look for it.) On a late night in August 1997, Lou has a minor car accident. Minor for her: the car that sideswipes her crashes spectacularly, and Lou speeds off in terror. The…
24 Comments