books books books

I still can't find my memory card reader (time to clean my dresser off …) so pictures from California are still on hold. However, I have read 4 books this week and as the weather is getting chillier, you might be looking for something good to cozy up with!

I read The Night Circus by Eric Morgenstern on the way to California. It was so well written that I didn't even mind that Keegan had to drop me off five hours before my flight so that he could get to class on time! The story is about a young man and a young woman who are taught magic using separate ideologies and then bound to fight to the death against their will by their teachers. That storyline however is pushed into the background by the setting of their fight. They inhabit a magical circus that travels around the world and the imagery is just so beautiful and fascinating that you really forget what the book is about. The circus is made up of different tents that spectators can wander through at will; you have the usual acrobats and contortionists and trained kittens, but also tents that are made up of cloud mazes and wishing trees. I've been craving caramel apples ever since I finished!!

(isn't the cover art beautiful?)

The next book I started on the flight and finished while hanging around Darcy's waiting for everyone else to get up. This book is actually our December book club book so I had high hopes. I was sorely disappointed. Big Stone Gap by Adriana Trigiani takes place in a small town in the Virginia Blue Ridge Mountains. I guess maybe my reading was colored by The Goldfinch, which was really heavy, and the Night Circus, which was fantastic, but I just felt dumber reading this book. It would have been better suited to reading at the beach or something, pure fluff. The main character's mother has just died, and then these men are fighting over her, and she's finding mystery family from Italy; it was all just blah. I wouldn't have finished it if it wasn't for book club. And they just made this book into a movie for the Virginia Film Festival! I wonder if it was more interesting on screen…

the cover art, so girly (and not in a good way)

a photo from trip advisor from the real town of Big Stone Gap! Much more interesting than the fictional version.

On the flight back from San Diego to Boston I read Law of Attraction by Allison Leotta, a book the my friend Maria so generously sent me! I've got the two sequels waiting on my bookshelf as well :) This novel was also fluff, but at least it had some murder mystery and excitement. The author was a sexual assault lawyer in D.C. for twelve years before she started writing, so the characters have a genuine feel to them. The main woman is Anna Curtis, a new lawyer on the D.C. scene who gets swept up into a domestic abuse case that turns into a hunt for a murderer. But is everything as it seems?? dun dun dunnnnnnnnnnnnnnn. It was fast to read and I gave it to my mom when I was done! I am looking forward to reading the next two.

The final book I read yesterday and it was amazing and I have been waiting for years for it to come out: The Magician's Land by Lev Grossman. It's the third in the Magicians series, which is so great and well written. The series follows a group of friends from their high school years into adulthood. They all meet when they are selected to go to magic school (hello Hogwarts but with a lot of drinking and sleeping around and getting expelled). Basically Harry Potter for adults. This is another book where the descriptions are so well done that you forget what they are talking about sometimes. I really like that people die in this book too (not as weird as it sounds) because it feels more real. There isn't always a happy ending. My favorite part of there series are the magic libraries (similar idea to Night Circus). There are rooms that contain all the books people meant to write but never got around to. And then there's a garden where flowers bloom and fade as feelings are felt and then pass. Such awesome ideas! 

I'm now starting another book that I've been waiting for for years, I'll probably read it all today (seeing as Keegan is still asleep and I am bored). Hopefully the memory card reader turns up soon!! 

Also, I will be home in a WEEK FROM TODAY! Whoooo! As much as I love love love living in Virginia, I really miss my dog and can't wait to run her around on Chappy Beach. Oh also see my family.

xoxoxo

The Goldfinch

I just finished The Goldfinch by Donna Tart. It took me almost 4 weeks exactly to  read- it's our November book club book. I am not sure how I feel about it, I have no sense of what the author intended for me to get out of the story. The novel stars with a young man in a drug daze freaking out in an Amsterdam hotel room (700 pages later you finally catch up with the intro). The book then goes back 10 years to when the boy, Theo and his mom and in a terrorist attack in a museam, she dies, and he pretty much accidentally steals an amazing piece of art- The Goldfich. The story follows his tossed around, neglected childhood afterwards, leading into a drug fueled adult life. Mainly I reall want to learn how to restore furniture now. Theo's life revolves around this question, "If your deepest self is singing and coaxing you straight toward the bonfire, is it better to turn away? ...Or... Is it better to throw yourself head first and laughing into the holy rage calling your name?" Page 761. Unclear if I recommend it.

Happy Homecoming!

Here's a little song to get the weekend started off, Keegan is really into it these days.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYlVzGUpT0k

Book Club was fun this week! We met at a place I had never been to called Feast! which is a dining section of Main Street Market (http://www.feastvirginia.com and http://marketstreetmarket.net)

I branched out on the suggestion of Nora who has been raving about her fig preserves and got a chicken, cheddar, and fig chutney panini with a side of tomato pesto soup. It was really good! We discussed the book we had read for October, Of Bees and Mist by Erick Setiawan. The group was split over all. I think that this book hovers around the edge of the YA genre which turned some people off the novel. There were some great parts that we all agreed upon, like how the author uses metaphors literally - one character, when she is nagging or angry, has bees fly out of her mouth and attack the person she is yelling at. Someone read online that the author based this mean character off his grandmother and that he dreads the day his mother reads the book and says, "You were too kind to her!"

For November we are still doing The Goldfinch and for December we decided on Big Stone Gap by Adriana Trigiani. Apparently it takes place in Virginia and has been turned into a short film that will be playing at the Charlottesville Film Festival. I would go see it but I will be in California visiting my baby cousin!! (and everyone else out there).

I just finished this morning City of Heavenly Fire by Cassandra Clare which I do not recommend to anyone except possibly 15 year olds. Obviously I loved the book as it was 730 pages that I read in the past two days. This is the sixth, and final installment I think, of the Mortal Instruments Series. There's a lot of demon fighting and teenage sexual tension. There was a movie made of the first book, City of Bones, that was pretty good all in all!

I also read Lexicon by Max Barry this week. I thought this book was so cool and this one I do recommend! In the novel people are selected for special training based on their ability to persuade and resist persuasion. Called "poets" these agents learn not only how to persuade by being friendly, scary, etc. but by using the tiny sounds that words are made up of against others. There's a part where one main character is breaking down the word sounds that people with liberal political views respond to verus people with conservative views. SO FASCINATING. Although there are some unbelievable parts to the story, there are some really interesting ideas being tossed around that I think are applicable and important in today's society. At one point someone says something along the lines of, "people will resist a census, but give them an empty social media page and they will give you more information than you know what tot do with." 

I have not been up to much this week besides working a lot and figuring out my student loan repayment plans (NOOOOO)

Yesterday before work I did make this shirt though!

design was definitely copied from HowlingBird but I worked there for a year so I feel like it's acceptable. I'm super excited to wear it!

I have the next two days off work - going to do some grocery shopping today. It's Keegan's cousins 6th birthday tomorrow, so I think we are going to stop by her pool party for some cake :))

The coolest thing happened to me yesterday! I was walking to the library with my books in my MHC tote bag and a woman stopped me on the street, gave me a hug, and said she had graduated from Mount Holyoke in 2010! We exchanged phone numbers and are going to try to hang out soon, she's a grad student at UVA. I feel so lucky to be part of such a welcoming community of alums. As happy as I am to be away from Mount Holyoke, and for all the issues I had with the school, I really am glad I chose to go to college there. I think I like it better from a couple hundred miles away though!!

It's homecoming this weekend which means I will avoid driving through town at all costs. I hope everyone has a safe and fun weekend!

xoxogoat