This has been an enlightening week. I really learned a lot, like how committed baby boomers are to their weird resentment of the younger generation for not suffering enough hardships. “Back in my day we walked five miles uphill in the snow to be coerced into sex and you didn’t hear us complaining!” I never thought I had any kind of trigger, but this week I learned that I do have a pretty specific one. And I learned that the same guys who’ve spent years telling women to smile more because their resting bitch face makes them seem unapproachable suddenly don’t understand the concept of a non-verbal cue. “WTF IS THIS SEXUAL SEMAPHORE I’M SUPPOSED TO BE FLUENT IN?”
Oh, right, I also did some reading.
Borne was just very much not my thing. I came really close to a DNF. I did some serious skimming. I’m not even going to give it a rating because I knew from the start that it just wasn’t for me. I tried. If it’s something that you’re drawn to, don’t listen to me.
On the flip side, Rabbit Cake was right up my alley. This is a perfect gem of a book. I love stories of family grief; it’s definitely my literary version of pressing on a bruise. This book does not shy away from the grisly details and I love it for that. Very sad and very funny with such a charmer of a main character. Strong recommend.
I now have about a hundred pages left of The World According to Garp. It’s been a while since I did a reread of an old favorite, and I’ve been wanting to revisit John Irving’s older stuff for a while now. Man, I was way too young for this when I first read it! I’m going to have a lot to say about it when I’m done; I don’t unequivocally love it like I did back then although it does have plenty going for it. What it doesn’t seem to have going for it is an editor…lose the dream sequences, dude! Anyway, there’s a lot about feminism and sexual assault in this book, and it’s kind of all over the place. Sometimes it’s ahead-of-its-time progressive, and sometimes it reads like As a Father of a Daughter: the novel. My verdict is not completely in, but I will have a lot to say about it when I’m done.
