Such a busy week, with the race and Dash’s birthday, plus I was actually liking things this week so I took my time. My library stack is very very high right now which is making me a little anxious. So let’s get to it!
Leaving Lucy Pear was good, much better than anything else I’d been reading over the last couple weeks. I want to say it started out slow then picked up a lot as it went on; this is probably true, but I was also very distracted when I started it and I had a very hard time staying focused. It was a little bit disorganized, sometimes a character would show up and it really took some effort to remember who that was. Still, good writing and had some very sweet characters. Fairly strong recommend from me.
Next up was The Magician’s Assistant. I’m trying to catch up on whatever Ann Patchett books I’ve missed, because Commonwealth was so good. I liked this a lot and it was pretty thought provoking for me. I had a hard time understanding why Sabine was so willing to limit herself to a platonic marriage to a gay man. That was harder for me to understand than the other women in the book who stayed in abusive marriages, which may say a lot about me and was probably the point of it in a way. I loved these characters and thought the ending was a little unsatisfying but believable. Definitely going to keep digging through her books.
I’m hoping to finish Mister Monkey today. I usually like Francine Prose, and this is pretty good, but I thought it would be funnier. My favorite of hers is Blue Angel, which did such a hilarious job showing the terrible writing you’ll have to suffer through in any English class, so my expectation was that a book about a bad play would be right in her wheelhouse. It’s good, and I love the structure of it, but it’s just maybe not as good as I’d been hoping. Or maybe I’m just really stuck on expecting it to be hilarious when it’s only going for amusing. A very wise bookseller once told me to “let it be the book that it is,” so I’m trying. But I still think it should be funnier. Sorry Sue!
