So, I guess I got sidetracked for a few months… but I’m back, and I hope to make blogging here a pretty regular thing. I won’t commit to daily, yet, but we’ll see what happens (: I have had plenty of time to write lately, given that I’ve spent much of the last three-and-a-half months on the couch. But, then, spending that much time on your butt doesn’t really provide much material. Ha! (I guess I should explain that I slipped and fell on the ice in early December, broke a few bones in my leg and ankle and dislocated my ankle. I’ve had surgery and am now in physical therapy. I’m walking now, but very slowly.)
Not surprisingly, I did get a bunch of reading done, but not as much as I expected. And now that life is mostly back to normal, the reading has slowed tremendously. I just finished Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn. I added it to my list a while ago when I read that Flynn is a fellow Chicagoan, but Stephen King moved it to the top of my list when I read what he had to say about the book:
To say this is a terrific debut novel is really too mild… I found myself dreading the last thirty pages or so but was helpless to stop turning them. Then, after the ligths were out, the story just stayed there in my head, coiled and hissing, like a snake in a cave. An admirably nasty piece of work, elevated by sharp writing and sharper insights.
“Admirably nasty…”??? With an endorsement like that from the King himself, how could I not read it??!! Of course, it was never available at the library, but I was lucky to come across it at the Newberry Library’s Mystery and More Book Sale last week (for $1, mind you!). It’s not a long read, especially compared to what I’ve been reading lately, and it goes by reallyreally fast. I really enjoyed it, and highly recommend it, but I don’t know that I was quite as enthusiastic as King… I think maybe my expectations were unreasonably high, though, after reading his comments as well as the other 15 or so comments printed on the inside cover.
Flynn really is an excellent writer and where many folks would have made the plot drag on and on, she kept to the point and stayed with the important stuff and moved everything right along – although not in the directions you might expect (which is a good thing!). Her characters are extreme, but she doesn’t take them to the point of being unbelievable. And, God, I just wanted to step in and help them!!! Ha! But, I’m just the reader, and I could only follow along page by page.
Isn’t that the best kind of book, though, really?
