A Little Bit of Fad Reading
Title: Divergent
Author: Veronica Roth
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books (An Imprint of HarperCollins)
Length: 487 pages
So I finally took that leap onto the [fad] train.
When I worked full time in the bookstore, chatting with customers, recommending books in person, I would have read this as soon as it was a thing for the sole purpose of finding something on the shelves that was similar when we were out of stock. It was published in 2011, the year I left. That last year was also one spent handling more inventory and displays as the store’s SIM than handling people and their whims and desires in the book world. So though I was vaguely familiar with the title I totally missed the need to devour this title in a day and come back with a list of titles to hold over disappointed customers until we could get this one in their hands.
Somewhere along the road in my stay-at-home-mom life I discovered Hunger Games, and fell in love. Though part of a huge fad, Hunger Games was no Twilight Saga or Vampire Diaries series. Hunger Games was epic and beautiful and insanely well written.
So when I saw the preview for the movie Divergent, I thought, ‘What the heck? Let’s see if it will surprise me too.’
Color me surprised – again! I really liked this one. I read it in one day – nearly one sitting. It tends to be easy to do that with contemporary young adult novels, no matter how long they are.
I found Hunger Games more moving, but I was able to relate more to the main character of Divergent. I’m nervous to see how they portray her in the movie, the book version is a person I feel very in tune with. Katniss Everdeen is someone I admire and look up to as a literary character, but with whom I share very few similarities. Tris’s story feels as though Roth dropped my mind into her version of dystopia. Tris feels how I feel and tends to react in ways I am known to react. (So far anyway.) Many of her fears were my fears at 16, actually, I can’t think of one that is different.
For that, it was incredibly enjoyable and easy to get into, and despite this being completely entertaining fluff fiction, I consider the hours spent reading it time well spent.
I’m interested to see how the rest of the books go (it’s a series), as well as the movie adaptation in theaters this month. Although I’m a little nervous that it might be too easy to amp up the cheese factor for the big screen – but I guess I’ll have to take a flying leap onto that fad train as well or I’ll never find out.
Seed Savers: Heirloom
Title: Heirloom
Author: S. Smith
Genre: Young Adult
Length: 300 pages
“I haven’t been this in love with a young adult series since Harry Potter,” I wrote after reading the first installment of the Seed Savers Series – Treasure – for the first time. Having now read the second and third installments – Lily and Heirloom – I can happily say that the statement still holds true.
No, there aren’t wizards or magic. The adventure doesn’t reach any of the same fantastical levels, but it is very epic. It is based in a truth that could easily lend itself to being our future. This dystopian society is so intense, because it’s so plausible.
Treasure featured two runaway kids (Clare and Dante) after their discovery of the wonderful world of planting your own seeds and growing your own food, in a government where that is forbidden. They flee for their safety. They flee to learn more.
Lily is where you get to know another character, Clare and Dante’s friend and fellow cohort in the Seed Saving excitement. In this book she blossoms before our eyes into less of a sidekick and more the hero. I was pleasantly surprised to find she had such a huge role in the story. She’s not just the key to almost everything, but the narrator as well! Who knew?
After a long alienation from Clare and Dante, Smith is wise enough to bring us back and feed our curiosity. Heirloom is told back and forth between what’s happening with Clare and Dante, and the world according to Lily. I loved this pattern for a third in a series. It wrapped up some lo0se ends, it led us into asking more questions, and we were able to adventure cross country and learn more about growing plants in a cozy environment in the same book. My brain needed this.
Heirloom, even more than the other two in the series, is full of interesting facts about how a society would get from where it was in the 1980’s to what it is in Smith’s novels. In a time when we are debating GMOs, organics, seeds, and patents, this book is a must have to help middle grade students grasp all the political nuances decisions of today will have on tomorrow. I love that Smith was able to take an intense political topic and weave it into a fascinating (and fun) story.
The fun comes into play, I think, because Smith did not intend to strictly bark all this information at us. It comes from love, and you can sense that as you read. Love for what? “[M]y love of good food,” she said in a blog interview with me once, “Seed Savers is a love story starring home-grown food. I love food—growing, harvesting, cooking, eating, and sharing it. And I think a lot of people these days maybe are missing out on that.”
If you’ve read books one and two, you cannot miss this third part of the series! It’s essential. It has propelled us so much deeper into the story and I’m jittery waiting on the fourth! It didn’t maintain the same read in one sitting quality of books one and two, but I believe that’s because the characters demand more of your time. There is so much more going on, and in the midst of it all they want to teach you as well. That takes more than a day. Clare, Dante, and Lily are growing and stretching their legs, and with them Smith is becoming more detailed and dynamic in her tale. Like good food, Heirloom was made to be savored.
If you haven’t read any of the series, you must. Purchase it for yourself, purchase it for your children for Christmas and read them together – or just swipe the copies and read them yourself. They are so good.
A Homeschool Mom Meets Seed Savers
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The thing about homeschooling – the awesome thing – is that plans are made, expectations logged, and as a parent you do a lot of letting go of both of those things as your child sort of takes over.
I personally planned on going full force into the alphabet and phonics, drill numbers and be sure my three year old was the smartest on the block. At age two she already knew all the states on the U.S. map south of the Mason Dixon line.
Kiddo, God, and the universe, had other plans. And I like them.
With the help of S. Smith’s Seed Savers series, some extreme budgeting issues (I’ve been the poorest person I know for the last twelve months), and Merriweather’s fabulous foraging site (see the links on the right), we’ve pretty much spent our ‘school days’ in the woods.
It all started many, many moons ago (as I like to say to my kiddo when telling stories)… somehow I was lucky enough to receive a copy of Seed Savers: Treasure from S. Smith by mail. I remember reading some of it out loud, but then giving up and devouring it all alone. I gave up because I wanted to read it faster, I wanted it all to myself, not because Kiddo was anything but cooperative.
What resulted is a long standing admiration for S. Smith, requests for her to participate in Earth Day 2013 (which she graciously accepted from 3000 miles away) and taking Kiddo to said Earth Day celebration. Before Seed Savers, I was already on a mission to be more self-sufficient and have my own garden, but Seed Savers really solidified that need in my heart. Instead of *wanting* to do it, I got my butt in gear and did it. This shift in my mentality eased over into the preferences of my daughter.
She loved the Earth Day celebration. She got to plant seeds with volunteers from the Mercer Arboretum. She got to watch me raffle off S. Smith’s first two books (Treasure & Lily), and it was all over – these Fall plans I had noted during my pregnancy were half out the window. Without hearing the entire Seed Savers story, Kiddo fell in love with seeds. S. Smith’s words are so powerful they radiate into every aspect of our house just by sitting on the shelf.
We have seen and read The Lorax more times than I can count. On her third birthday her great-grandmother gave her spending money and she spent it at Good Books in the Woods on two Cat in the Hat Learning Library books. One is on Rainforests and the other on Seed Planting.
We spend our days looking for birds on the trails, foraging for produce, growing our own bell peppers and okra, and now reading Heirloom as we tromp through the woods.
However, you don’t have to be a mom, a conservative, a homeschooler, a toddler, or a hippie to enjoy the Seed Savers Series. Seed Savers, including the latest – Heirloom – is full of courageous characters, a rich adventure, and exciting philosophical food for thought.
What started out as a really unique young adult dystopian society concept on Smith’s part, has evolved into something more than we initially bargained for. The story is more complex than I anticipated. The effect on our lives has more reach. Smith has matured as a writer along with the growth of her characters. I’m a little disappointed that the stories will, at some point, come to an end…
If you don’t believe me, find out for yourself.
Purchase the Seed Savers Series from Amazon
Visit the Author’s Website: http://authorssmith.com
Go Like Her on Facebook: http://facebook.com/AuthorSSmith
Follow S. Smith on Twitter: http://twitter.com/AuthorSSmith
The Booktacular Book Club – July 2013
A really awesome twelve year old and her mother came to me and asked if they could start a book club at Half Price Books Humble. Of course! Customer led clubs are definitely welcome, especially from the next generation of readers. Having a twelve year WANT to be in charge of a book club is, in my opinion, one of the coolest things ever.
So, with a little bit of guidance, the girls laid out a plan. Each month they will select a series. Book one of the series will definitely be discussed and each member can read the rest of the series if they are interested or choose to only read the one title. This gives everyone a lot of leeway to discover new things.
Our roster so far:
July’s Discussion = The Cry of the Icemark/ The Icemark Chronicles by Stuart Hill
August’s Discussion = Over See, Under Stone/ The Dark is Rising Sequence by Susan Cooper
September’s Discussion = The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe/ The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
Of course, I’m reading as much as I can with these girls as though I were a full-fledged member of the club… and along with that, providing my reviews of both the book and our discussions.
Title: The Cry of the Icemark
Author: Stuart Hill
Publisher: The Chicken House
Genre: Fantasy/ Adventure
Length: 472 pages
For me, this book had a lot of promise, a great story, and not quite as much follow through in the delivery. It’s good, I would recommend it to 12-15 year old girls who love fantasy, but I kept falling asleep.
I honestly believe it is something I would have devoured in the back seat of my parents’ van on vacation had I gotten a hold of it at age 12, I would have craved more and collected the series. But my 29 year old mommy-self felt disconnected from the story and, frankly, was made tired by it. Where Susanne Collins reminded me of my younger girlish desires and dreams, and plopped me right down in the middle of a fantasy I could get lost in, with The Hunger Games – Stuart Hill and I kept playing an awkward dance of “This is awesome and now I shall remind you that you aren’t Thirrin, you’re just reading…” Mostly, I think in the internal dialogue. The characters would start telling me what they were thinking too often and it threw me off. A healthy reminder not to do that in my own writing, because I think it is something I might be guilty of. I would rather decipher a character on my own, thanks. Remembering my 12 year old brain, however, I wonder if this would have bothered me then… would I even have noticed it?
I hoped to include the girls’ reaction to this book before I posted it. But alas, on the third Thursday of the month at 6:30 pm, I was sitting at the table all alone. I wonder if they lost interest in the club they just started, or if some miscommunication in days occurred. We shall see next month. Either way, I AM glad I took time out of my life to read this, even if it wasn’t my favorite.
A Real-Time Review
I always take notes and comment in the margins or in a journal through out my reviews. But recently, I read a friend’s novel while he was on facebook chatting with me and I gave him a real time review… moment by moment, thought by thought. He seemed entertained by this, so I thought I could try doing this with more books. What if instead of editing a formal review after a book, I just shared my streaming thoughts? With Prominence League Part Two, I’m giving it a try. The following is directly from my journal this afternoon – no edits.
Title: The Prominence League Part Two
Author: C. David Cannon
Publisher: LucidBooks
Genre: Young Adult
Length: 230 pages
Mandarin Moon in my Scentsy warmer, coffee depleted, still in my pajamas, I sit down to read The Prominence League Part II. I truly enjoyed the first book, but that was baseball and this is martial arts – my element. From line one, I’m HOOKED.
Already the book shows a level of writing maturity – that confidence that radiates “I am a seasoned author now.” I hope my second book shows the same degree of improvement over my first.
I love that he starts the chapter numbers where the previous book ended. It gives you an immediate sense of continuation and begs the question – “Is there an omnibus in my future?”
Still, Cannon keeps with his love for knocking out characters. Carriane is a fainting Queen with a flair for drama. It kind of makes you wonder if she was mildly based on anyone he knew in real life and what that was like.
My favorite thing about dystopian society fiction is how it points out intentions behind real world current events.
“Now I see why people did nothing to stop it,” Ian says looking at the timeline of events in the report. “It happened too slow, and was covered in lies the whole way.” […]
“That’s right Ian […] they weren’t trying to keep us safe from terrorists like they claimed. In fact, they encouraged new reports of terrorist attacks, because they always beefed up their measures after one. This was obedience training plain and simple.”
In all this fabulous story telling, though, I want to slap Carriane and her obsession with her relationship status. But Cannon’s behind the scenes take on our current education system quickly makes me get over it, until Emerald reinstates the token young adult love triangle.
What’s with the Caleb kid that all the females salivate at his very existence? It’s like sitting through high school watching girls fawn over the boy that became the man I married.
And it’s not just the writing that is better than ever [I note after seeing a new graphic], I’m especially impressed with this round of maps and graphics. And for the first time in the series we see a worldwide view of Carriane’s reality.
By Chapter 26, my daughter is using me as a full on jungle gym. She has no idea that what I am reading now will be passed onto her in about eight to ten years. There’s just so much to discuss afterward… the obvious dystopian society and personal worldview stuff – but then also the less obvious near dive into meta-fiction with Carriane’s self-absorbed reality show fantasy and the ever interesting relationship between a hero and their adventure.
Once again I find myself reading an American novelist, possibly sending me on an escape route to Canada. Man, I need to visit Canada already! It is so often deemed a safe haven. do they write novels in Canada about escaping to the United States?
There’s this book by Olivier Dunrea that I read to my kiddo literally every night called BooBoo
Andi read another book.
“Good book,” she says.
So there you have it folks… my first official stream of consciousness review.
Other books you might enjoy if you read Cannon (or if you enjoyed you should read Cannon):
Fizz & Peppers
Arlington Park
The Hunger Games Series
Title: The Hunger Games Trilogy
2. Catching Fire
3.Mockingjay
Author: Suzanne Collins
The Hunger Games movie came out on Netflix and my husband really wanted to watch it. But I have a rule in my house about watching movies before I read the books, which goes like this: I don’t. I did want to see the movie, but I feared the series a little bit. I didn’t want to read something out of obligation to curiosity and book pop culture and then feel let down like I had with Twilight.
I enjoyed Twilight, but I felt as though I had killed off more than a few brain cells by suffering through the commitment of all four books… but Twilight was a paranormal romance adventure… The Hunger Games is a dystopian society… there, there it is again “dystopian society” that little phrase that sucks me in every time!
So this week began project Hunger Games. I wanted to at least get through a chunk of the first book before movie date night, and I did get through a bit, but I did not have the book completed when I watched the movie. I tell you what though, I went through the movie and all three books in three days and I’m blown away. It was pretty awesome considering what I was expecting. The series is more comparable to Harry Potter than Twilight, in my opinion.
When I finished Mockingjay, I closed the book with a shake and had to go take a shower to wash the invisible grime off my skin and bask in the happiness of the epilogue. It was perfect.
A lot of people say the third book wasn’t good. I admit I was thoroughly disheartened about halfway through, and the emotional disconnect of some of the primary characters lasted way too long. But it was appropriate. It made the end that much sweeter.
On to the highlight of the purpose of my post:
This is the most intelligently written young adult love triangle ever.
Love triangles in young adult novels are pretty much a staple plot line. Everyone has them. They are always melodramatic, fitting considering the angst of being a teenager. But Collins wrote a tip of an iceberg beauty that I will actually be proud to share with my daughter.
Why?
Love is presented very clearly as a choice. In a world that is completely out of Katniss Everdeen’s control, in times when her family’s safety is based on how she behaves towards others, in a time when the choices don’t seem to be hers at all but a manipulation tactic from the authorities in her life… who she loves and how she loves them is still her choice.
I’m so exhausted of whirlwind romances in young adult novels that are out of the teen’s control. They fell in love… they were destined… they were fated…. blah, blah, blah.
I believe that everything happens for a reason, I do. I believe that God has a plan, I do. But I also believe that loving others and how we show them that is a choice every step of the way. What I like about Collins’ book is the importance one simple choice leads to another choice to another and another and steam rolls into larger choices. The whole book is about the importance of weighing consequences, realities, and feelings within the scales of logic, need, and want. Sure, events out of the characters’ control changes circumstances, but given new circumstances what is the new ‘right’ choice.
I love it.
If you haven’t read the books, I tried to write this in such a way so I would not overwhelm you with blatant spoilers. I hope you understand my meaning without clear cut examples. Maybe when the dust settles I’ll write a spoiler alert review.
M.G. King: the new voice of young adult fantasy
Title: Fizz & Peppers
Author: M.G. King
Genre: Young Adult/Fantasy/Adventure
“Sometimes great ideas are so genius and unlikely they fall from the heavens; but sometimes the best ones are simple, waiting to be found already in the palm of your hand.”
I don’t know if this idea fell from the heavens or was found in the palm of King’s hands, but Fizz & Peppers is utter genius. It’s quite possible we have the next J.K. Rowling on our hands, folks.
Meet Colin Colbeck and a girl named Pepper, arch enemies and ex-best friends. Also, meet Colin’s kid brother Sid… by the way, he has trolls living under his bed. There’s also a nutty but endearing grandmother to rescue, an entire world under suburbia and the nearby wood, thrums, hot peppers, and a game called knattlebones.
This book, written by a mom for and with her own middle-grade sons, is about two boys who are full of some of the most “brilliantly, beautiful idea[s] ever to be thought of in the history of the world” as they fight off trolls to rescue their kidnapped, sometimes senile grandmother from the bottom of the world.
What an imagination this family has! The family responsible for writing the book that is… After reading King’s dedication at the front of the book to her “what if?” family, immediately I wanted to be a fly on the wall at their house as they speculate the nature of the world. What minds! To come up with the idea that a little bit of fizz from a soda pop would wake up a sleeping troll from a stone-like state and send them romping the underground, free to steal from (and eat!) Peoplekins and wreak havoc on everything.
Not every author can make such a smooth transition between genres – picture book to young adult is a couple hundred page leap – but King has done an excellent job. Fizz & Peppers is just as wonderful as Librarian on the Roof, and I am excited to have an author to share with my daughter for her whole life, not just her babyhood.
The only draw back is that Fizz & Peppers is currently only available on e-book, and I am very old fashioned when it comes to books… I like them in my hands, I like to sniff their pages, I like the risk of a paper cut. Lucky me, King printed me a copy in a binder! (Yes, I am bragging to cyberspace, I have this book in a binder! And I feel special.)
Reminiscent of The Labyrinth (come on you ’80’s kids, I know you were fascinated with Jareth the Goblin King as much as I was) and Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, Fizz & Peppers will captivate you and keep you wide-eyed from the first hint of a troll until the very last drop of ginger ale. It’s a fantastic adventure for all ages that I believe will stand the test of time.
***UPDATE*** Fizz & Peppers is now available in paperback!
The Wild Girls – A Review
Title: The Wild Girls
Author: Pat Murphy
Publisher: Speak (an imprint of Penguin Group)
Genre: Young Adult
Length: 288 pages
Dear Publishing Companies,
Allow me to tell you something you probably already know: Take a book, add a matte finish to it, trace some swirly-like-ivy lines about, and add a garden or forest scene – I will most likely take the book home on the spot.
At least that’s what happened with Pat Murphy’s The Wild Girls. And despite having an equally girly and gardeny looking book on my night stand (The Distant Hours
Even if the cover had not been so fabulous, the first line is:
“I met the Queen of the Foxes in 1972, when my family moved from Connecticut to California.”
How do you pass up a first line like that?
It’s a story about twelve year old girls for twelve year old girls, but at twenty-nine I was still dying to know all about the Queen of the Foxes and how interesting a girl would have to be to have the honor of meeting her.
My own wild girl, running, after we read in the park and took a boat ride, but before we had our picnic in the grass.
Joan meets Sarah in the woods behind an old orchard and immediately takes to her even though Sarah is malicious and contemplating throwing rocks at her. She can hit a kid dead on from about thirty feet away, too. Soon the girls are fast friends with woodsy aliases Newt and Fox, telling and writing stories together as they each escape their lives in the comfort and enchanting beauty of the woods and its wildlife.
In the spirit of Bridge to Terabithia (without the inevitable water works), The Secret Garden (without the invalid), and a dash of How to Buy a Love of Reading (or writing), The Wild Girls is a great coming of age story for girls harboring an inner Josephine March (Little Women).
I loved it. I read a lot of it to kiddo outside and she loved it as it served for a great book to welcome spring. I can’t wait to read it again when she is older and see what she thinks of it then.
In the mean time, I’m looking for more Pat Murphy titles, reading Kate Morton, and writing a novel.
Young Adult
Confession:
I have an illness. I see an indie film and no matter how awful it looks, I feel the urge to give it a shot. It’s an indie film, which to me means it’s an underdog, and who knows, what if it’s a hidden gem of awesomeness?
Take that and a love for authors, books, stories about authors of books, and Charlize Theron in all her hotness – how could I pass up Young Adult on Netflix? I just couldn’t.
Oh dear God, give me that hour and thirty-three minutes of my life back.
That’s not fair, the movie is good for what it is. It is well done. It has a bit of wit to it. The director of photography did this brilliant thing with a cassette tape and player and the beginning that I totally loved.
But I really don’t think it is possible for a character to stress me out anymore than Mavis Gary just managed. I mean seriously, what was wrong with that crazy lady?! Everything! That’s what!
She is an alcoholic who drinks way too much diet coke first thing in the morning – out of the bottle. She is chronically unsatisfied, sleeps around, divorced, 37, at the tale end of writing glory (she was a ghost writer of a young adult series that is a few years past its prime selling years), and oh yeah the most important part: she’s chasing down her married ex-boyfriend who just had a baby with his wife. It’s a pretty ballsy role for Theron, and she pulls it off brilliantly; I just want to strangle the whole demented story, if strangling a story could ever be possible.
The best part, the part that does make the movie worth a damn, is Patton Oswalt. I sort of love him. A lot. He is an awesome supporting actor that shows up in everything, but I know him best as Joel Mynor in Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse. He is Mavis’ voice of reason in this little fiasco of a man hunt/coming of age story. Can you call it a coming of age story if the protagonist is 37? I think not, but I promise you, it fits. And in the end when the Patton Oswalt’s on-screen sister asks to go back to the Mini-Apple with Mavis, I desperately wanted her to say ‘Can’t I’m taking your super awesome brother.’ Of course, that didn’t happen because despite the Esmeralda/Quasimodo dynamic, Young Adult’s own Quasimodo character was way to good for the likes of the star beauty.
Oh dear God give me that hour and thirty three minutes of my life back – except don’t. Even though it was kind of painful to watch, it resonates a bit. Check it out. Let me know what you make of it.
Anakalian Whims 
Literary Journal Monday – Mapping My Mind
March 10, 2014 at 10:14 pm (In So Many Words, Reviews, The Whim) (ADD, ancient history, books, dystopia, dystopian society, fiction, Gone, good books in the woods, Hunger, Lang Leav, literary journals, London Review, love, Michael Grant, poetry, reading life, reviews, romance, series, social commentary, Tonight You're Mine, You Instead, young adult)
I am not ADD, but my mind is often many places at once. It goes and goes… it races… it is unstoppable.
I was craving a little bit of dystopian society literature after reading Herodotus. My brain spinning in a circular momentum about democracies, oligarchies, and dictatorships. Darius and then Xerxes tyrading around ancient lands building the Persian Empire. A thousand utopian and dystopian variations of all societies throughout history – a million possible outcomes for our modern world – twisting about in my mind. Conveniently, it was at this moment that a trailer for the movie Divergent came on and I thought, “It’s about time I read Veronica Roth.”
Cue discussion of autism I’ve been having on and off with people since reading Not Even Wrong written by Paul Collins. Collins is an amazing author and obscure historian. Still suffering from story hangovers from Divergent and the movie Tonight You’re Mine (all about instantaneous human connections) – I found myself thinking about my niece’s Gone series.
Set in a town in California, all the kids fifteen and under have been left in a supernatural bubble – all adults over puberty have vanished, leaving kids and babies to fend for themselves and create a new government. Not unlike Lord of the Flies, different factions have formed. One is under the leadership of Sam Temple, another under his half brother Caine (the biblical implications of Caine and Abel not to be lost on readers, of course). Sam and his new girlfriend, Astrid, are two of the oldest left behind. They have formed a parental union for the younger kids, caring for all the helpless, including Astrid’s autistic brother.
Like bumper pool – or pinball, if you missed out on the bumper pool phenomena – the synapses in my brain spark and twitch and leap bringing me back to Paul Collins/Not Even Wrong/ McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern. Then, I find myself thinking, “Goodness, it’s Literary Journal Monday.
London Magazine February/March 1981 Vol. 20 Nos. 11 &12
The Private Letters of Tennessee Williams and a piece on Gore Vidal catch my eye. I flip through the first few ads, the table of contents, then stop dead on a heading: FINAL REMINDER.
My thoughts have veered so far off track that I forget what I was reading altogether. I flip through the journal in my hand trying to grasp the reason I had sat down to look at this in the first place.
It’s March. St. Patty’s Day is coming up. Irish authors keep popping in and out of my mind. Ireland… Scotland… Tonight You’re Mine… music… poetry… Derek Mahon, an Irish poet’s name blinks at me from the page of the literary journal in my hand. Literary Journal Monday, of course. I read the poem “The Elephants” first. I love elephants. Then my eyes skip over to “April in Moscow” and I read “Spring burst into our houses…” It does, doesn’t it? Just bursts right in and none too soon. At the end of the poems there is an ad for the Poetry Society Bookshop at 21 Earls Court Square in London. I wonder if it is still there.
If they do still exist, I bet they have a copy of Lang Leav’s Love & Misadventure. I’m dying for a copy. Leav has been speaking to my soul lately. Misadventures stuck in the cogs of the mind of a woman turned 30.
A line from Grant’s book swings into full view of my mind’s eye:
There rarely is when a hug is really needed. It’s that moment Leav writes about…
The lack of selfishness between the characters at this point is refreshing in fiction and real life.
In a 2014 American Society of infantile adults who never learned to fend for themselves and work hard without constant praise, we are fascinated by literature and movies where children and teens are forced to grow up overnight and be adults.
It’s sad when the idea of fifteen-year-olds co-leading a community and making wise, unselfish decisions for themselves and each other sounds absurd and fictional. My associative mind leaps back to all the ancient history I’ve been studying, back to the likes of King Tut – pharaoh at age nine – dead by nineteen, married somewhere in between.
We believe in responsible marriages like the Romans, but we chase telepathic connections like the Greeks. What a very convoluted and contradictory way to live – the reality of a dystopian society is that every society is a dystopia – even a society of one. Our minds are everywhere and nowhere. Of course we are in conflict.
I suppose you Literary Journal Monday followers got a little more than you wanted. I bit off more than I could chew today. I attempted to map my own mind and identify all the associations and patterns, leaving myself somewhat exhausted from chasing whimsies.
At least I got to spend a few stolen moments in this room…
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