I have been consuming books by the boatload lately.
Three reasons.
1. I realized (again) that I learn from books – if I want to grow, be motivated, inspired, changed, challenged, etc. – I read on a topic. And I need to grow in a lot of, er, topics.
2. I miss fiction. I’d fallen out of the lovely habit of just savoring books, enjoying the pure pleasure of story. Too much academic reading, too much nonfiction (without the good stories alongside), too much literary fiction and too few rewards. I hate a snarky read. I hate bad writing. Where is the blessed book free of both?
Well – not always true, I’m sure – but I took
Gretchen Rubin‘s commendation to heart and started reading YA fiction. Delicious. I probably won’t be satiated in YA alone – the appetite is enormous – but I do find YA to be a large, interesting room full of smart, deep, well-written books. Some duds, too, sure. But plenty of good ones to choose from.
Anyhow. Oh yes, and I do read fiction as a lovely way to procrastinate on doing the (nonfiction) things I’ve been reading about and learning to do…
3. Joe got me a Kindle for Christmas.
= fall in love all ovah again
= best gift ever
= so many benefits that even an old-school, paper-infatuated, Apple-resistant gal like me can’t deny the love, the absolute and utter thrill of being able to carry a room full of books with me wherever I go. Because, despite the rigors of getting three kids under four dressed, pottied, redressed, and loaded in the car on any sort of outing, the most stressful part of leaving is still the moment I stop in the library (aka bulk storage room full of books masquerading as home office), purse in hand, and ask myself, “Which book should I take?” Now: I take them all. Oh joy, joy, joy.
Joe came home with a stack of YA fiction I’d requested from the library. I started (after much deliberation between which to start with, which nearly resulted in an ugly treadmill incident) on
Graceling by Kristin Cashore.
Her first novel. Lovely. (I’ve used that word too much in this post.) The prose is striking, original, ringing, vivid. I found myself wanting to copy lines down just to savor and share later, but didn’t because I was too interested in the story for a petty exercise like NOTE TAKING (which I happen to love, truly madly deeply).
Oh, the story. Right.
You don’t really need a plot summary. There’s a heroine, who is more than she seems and a hero with similar characteristics, and a villain as well… And the characters make you like them and the world draws you in, and my only complaint is that the final “downfall of the villain” scene is almost anti-climactic. It’s like Kristin (can I call you Kristin? Is that okay?) felt like she’d ventured into a sticky mess of conflict and she’d better RESOLVE, RESOLVE NOW before things got out of hand and there was no clear way to resolution. To which I’d say: Kristin, trust yourself a little more. You wrote the whole gorgeous story, created the whole world it contains, you’re not going to get lost at the end. Take your time.
Maybe it was getting close to her deadline.
At any rate, despite that single complaint, the book is a gem. Poetry-like prose, “I-like-you-will-you-be-my-friend” characters.
Read.
Enjoy.
5/5 stars.
Image by
Ginnerobot.
