Land of Lakes and Volcanoes

I write about my mom a lot, primarily because of how close we were and because it's easier to write about someone who you know can't read what you're writing.  Also, my relationship with my dad has always been... complicated. Yesterday I was scrubbing a grill and baking ribs and doing yard work and I had one of those moments when I thought my mom might be really proud of me.  She gave me a kind of independence that lets me believe I can do just about anything that I can Google instructions for.  And I also realized that being perpetually single is made infinitely easier by having had a mother who made it clear that I don't need a man to clean the gutters. Today I've been thinking about the ways having my dad in particular made me who I am.  I'm watching baseball, which I love because of him.  I played softball specifically so that we'd have something to talk about other than fishing.  He and mom are both responsible for my ability to fix things, for my ...

★★★★ Loved it.  I read The Girl Who Stopped Swimming  and felt kind of meh about it, but this book won a number of awards, so I decided to give Joshilyn Jackson another try.  I'm so glad I did.  The characters in this book are so incredibly real, so real that the whole time I was reading the book, I kept imagining the characters as people I know.  I couldn't help myself.  In one particular instance, it's a bit painful, but more on that later. Our heroine, Nonny Frett is between things, in about as many ways as you can imagine.  She's not quite divorced, but definitely not single.  She travels back and forth on a regular basis between where she lives in Athens and Between, where her family lives.  She loves Fisher, her great-niece like a mother, but hasn't really stepped up to be like a parent to her.  I identified with Nonny so strongly.  She's so torn between all these different places and things and parts of herself, ideas abou...

★ Why is chick lit so annoying?  Why are books aimed at women or about women usually about them coming into themselves or of themselves or with themselves or any of these things in the company of other women in such a way that you are immediately supposed to feel a camaraderie with every other woman over how awesome women are?  That's why I don't normally read this stuff. I think I have a healthy appreciation for female friendships - I'm not very good at making them, so when I have them, I try to treasure them.  And I also have an incredible respect for the self-journey, the one you have to go through to grow up.  However, how hard is it to write a book in which a woman is just a person that stuff happens to?  In books about men, they go on adventures, and at no point in the book does the man stop to think, Am I awakening?   No, because he's awake.  While thinking of his friends, does he stop to ponder, Dude, I am so happy to be here and ...

The books I've read that fulfill the Southern Lit Challenge: The Mermaid Chair - Sue Monk Kidd Between, Georgia - Joshilyn Jackson

★★★★ I couldn't understand what the big deal is about this book, right up until I read it, that is.  People who love it, really love it.  Now I'm one of them. Yes, the characters are rabbits, and that might lead you to believe it's a children's book.  Assume that, and you miss out on some really amazing fiction. By making the characters rabbits, Adams has the option of giving them their own history and mythology.  It also makes it somewhat magical, in that it forces us to think about what other layers of existence are occurring alongside our own.  However, having rabbits as heroes and villains doesn't limit the story in any way. The rabbits are real characters from the very beginning.  There are leaders and followers, bullies and friends, prophets and warriors.  Some rabbits are as ingenious as others are stupid.  Throughout the book (which comes in at a healthy 476 pages), you really start to identify with the characters.  I think Bi...

★★ It's not that it was bad - it just wasn't much of anything.  It's reasonably witty and entertaining.  The satire of zombies seeking "human" rights, is clever, but Zombies doesn't really delve into anything deep enough to be more than a quick light read.   This counts toward the 100+ Challenge .