A Bitter Pill

“Bacon improved things dramatically.” Truth.

3.13 Bitterblue

This is the follow up to Graceling, taking place eight years later and following the search for truth of the new queen we met as a girl in Graceling.  I honestly was looking forward to it, and while I liked being back in the world, nothing much happened.

At 500-some pages, there is just far too much bloat going on.  New characters are introduced who are all too similar to one another and many unnecessary, story lines that start out interesting but don’t have any structure or follow through, and a mystery that is intriguing until it is wrapped up nicely with very actually little resolved.  In the end, it didn’t even feel like a completed story, just one long tale that meandered nowhere. (But I did love that Bitterblue said, “Balls,” a lot.  It is a favorite of mine.)

This is a big issue for me with the new YA landscape.  Once publishers figured out that kids would take on a long book, scarf it down, and still want more, everyone started to write every little thing they thought of and not edit it well.  And yes, readers love a long book to escape into, but it needs to be worth it in the end.  Not every book needs to be over 500 pages and part of a trilogy.  Sometimes a story is short and tight, sometimes questions are left unanswered, and sometimes it is worth the extra pages, but not always and certainly not as often as the current YA publishers seem to think.

A Very Sad Story

“Every day I feel a change in my perception.” Truth.

2.13 A Kiss Before You Go

I didn’t know this would be my second book of 2013.  I didn’t set out to read it today.  In fact, I didn’t even own it an hour ago…

It is profound.  Profoundly sad.  Profoundly beautiful; its words and its pictures.  Profoundly hopeful. 

Danny lost his wife.  His son lost his mother.  Through pictures and words he shares his grief as he learns to live this new life that will never be the same.  The things he has to learn how to do, the things he needs to teach his son, the life left behind that he needs to both honor and leave behind.  It is a very sad story that is also beautiful.  It reminds us again that you just never know, so love the ones you’re with.

Write Me Well

“I immersed myself in books and rock ’n’ roll, the adolescent salvation.” Truth.

1.13 Just Kids

“Write me well.” are the final words Viola speaks to Shakespeare in the movie Shakespeare in Love.  They are the most romantic words.  To trust every bit of the truth of yourself to the person you love and ask them to write your story. To write the whole truth about you… Takes such an amazing amount of trust.  And that is what Robert Mapplethorpe asked of Patti Smith.  He asked her to love him, and stay with him, inspire him, and, eventually, write him.  And my goodness, did she write him well.

I adored every page of this book.  This is a love story that is really about friendship.  It isn’t overtly romantic or passionate.  It is instead honest and trusting.  Two people who needed and depended on one another as they changed and turned into other people.  Do I think she left out some of the dirty details in order to reinforce her poetic existence?  Absolutely.  And I do not care one little bit.  I think we could use a bit less of dragging up the ugly details of days gone by in favor of thanking those people who have touched our lives in some way.

I always wanted to be an artist.  I longed to be able to sketch out all of my feelings, or paint a scene that only existed in my mind. I have countless art supplies: paints, papers, tools. Sadly, I don’t have the chops.  This book has made me see that art isn’t about having the chops, or feeling you were born to do something, it is about living and creating until you find yourself where you are supposed to be.  In the next few weeks I vow to pick up some of those pencils and paper and see what happens.