Her Fearful Symmetry

Ok, so I've been a slug.

I finished "Her Fearful Symmetry" about 2 weeks ago.

I didn't like it. Not because I was expecting another TTW (Time Traveler's Wife, for you uninitiated). It was a bad story. The writing was good, if you can seperate that out from the story? I just didn't like the story. It was a ghost story and the ghost was a bad person. You meet her only briefly as a live person at the beginning of the story and really don't get to know her until after she's dead. And she's just not nice. But it's not in a spooky ghostly way; she's just a jerk. This in itself would be ok, but there's no acceptable resolution to her jerkiness. There's no good resolution for any of the characters. I'm not talking happy endings, I often get irritated at those anyways. Just an acceptable resolution. A believable resolution? I wanted to like it...just didn't.

Then I started reading "Little Bird of Heaven" and stopped after about 50 pages. The author used the word "commingling" three times in the first 50 pages. Good Lord Harriet, where is your editor?

I started reading "A Mercy". I couldn't get past the first few pages. Toni Morrison writes in a foreign language. It feels like a foreign language. Something about her syntax. But then I picked it back up and tried again. I slowed down and treated it like a foreign language. And now I'm enjoying it very much. She can find the characters' voices without any pretentious vocabulary.

All these books are overdue at the library. It's been so cold, I haven't gone out of the house unless necessary. I'll pony up with the late fees when it goes above 10 degrees.

There's nothing else going on right now. My life's so common it disappears and sometimes even the music cannot substitute for tears.