Fireworks Over Toccoa

Last night was our grand book club where we read Fireworks Over Toccoa by Jeffrey Stepakoff. I signed up for the ARC of the books through a book club sponsor with 5minutesforbooks.com. And, as my friend Lora said, it was great that we got the books if only to appreciate it when we choose GOOD books from now on...

There are several questions we needed to consider per our sponsorship and I'll cover those, first, and then get into what everyone thought of the book.

1. Was this a good bookclub book? If so, why? If not, why not?
I'm going with yes and no. I can see SOME bookclubs really liking this. I can see a group of women getting caught up in the supposed romance of it and kicking back with some wine and fantasizing about leaving their husbands over a book like this. However, that club is not our club. We all genuinely like our husbands and not many of us are the straight romance book kind of girls. So, for our club, it was not a great pick.

2. What themes or topics resonated with your bookclub?
I think, other than the sheer stupidity we all felt from the main character, was what exactly makes for a 'soul mate', if they actually exist.

3. What kind of identifications did you make with the book? For example, the place, being the wife/daughter etc of a soldier, being a young bride, etc.
None of us really identified with the book. We are all very, very different from anything presented in the book.

4. Were you able to have the author "join" you? What did you think of that?
No. We felt it better to not have him join us, due to the general dislike of the book among members.

5. How do you generally pick a book for a bookclub?
We have each member pick a book on their month. What they pick is entirely up to them.

Now. On to what we all thought (and be warned that I will be talking openly of all parts of the book because I am assuming after this none of you will want to read it and if you do...well. You should go in knowing what you are getting into.). This book, it is not great. It is all over the place and was apparently heavily channeling The Bridges of Madison County. Unfortunately, The Bridges of Madison County comes out looking like a masterpiece for the ages when compared, which is no easy feat, considering.

It was hard to be sympathetic toward Lily. We were given NO reason for her actions, but were supposed to be ok with her falling into bed with a man she met less than 24 hours prior while waiting for her husband to come home from war. NO reason at all was given why this should happen, other than disjointed scenes that showed her trying to buck convention. However, those scenes were so contrived and obviously written ONLY for the fact to have "evidence" that she was different and in tune in ways others around her were not. Sorry, not buying it. How she truly came off was a petulant child who had no business making grown up choices. I think we were all left with the feeling (as Shari said) of, if it truly meant that much to her and she was INDEED that girl who defied tradition SHE WOULD HAVE GONE AFTER HIM. At the very least, she would have found him, explained what happened and asked him to wait. But she did not. Which simply reinforced the idea that she was merely a child, bored and more concerned with not being her mother than anything remotely to do with heart. I could even overlook the fact that she was married and had an affair with a guy (her husband had been gone to war, etc, whatever. I'll give her that) if she was not such a weak character.

The fireworks. I just don't even know where to begin. I got the feeling the author wanted to write a book where fireworks were a metaphor for an intense sexual relationship (and not exactly subtle). And everything he came up with in this book stemmed from that desire. It felt forced and unreal; especially in the first part of the book before Lily even meets Jake.

What I think would have been an even more interesting book; not sell out by killing the husband (seriously, how contrived!) and starting the book the day after he comes home and how she has to handle either living with a man she loves (although minus a little passion) or telling him she is leaving to be with her soul mate (aka the man she met 48 hours before) and showing her life living with those actions. Or...well, just about any other ending, actually.

Overall, we were grateful for the opportunity to receive the ARCs and discuss this book, but in the end, the execution of the story, for us, fell very flat and poorly executed.

Up for next month: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies...I have a feeling this will be more our style!


(moon on your pyjamas, paul weller)

What You See Is Average Awesome

I am average. I just am. Nothing sparkly here, people. And that's so completely ok. I mean, I'm not horrid looking or anything, but I'm definitely a soft around the middle 30-something mom. And I don't think there is anything wrong with that. However, it's taken me a long time to get to this place. And it's a place I'm definitely not always in. Or even near, sometimes.

Growing up, I never thought I was even close to pretty. I was plain, bordering on not so cute. I never thought I was fat (because I wasn't...) but I never appreciated what I did look like. And then I went to college. Oh, college. How I loved you...I finally figured some things out. Like I WAS cute. And thin. And boys took notice. It was a nice time.

But then, time passed. I got married. And divorced. And remarried. And lived life. And became a mom. Those sorts of things tend to show on your face and body. And I've spent a lot of time the past few years hating it all. Precious, wasted time. My friend, Loralee, has written a couple of posts about labels and beauty. They've stayed on my mind for weeks. I've been trying to think of the times in my life that I've felt truly beautiful. I was failing miserably until I started listening to people.

It seems I've cultivated the reputation for being the "well dressed" one at church. While I started out choosing to see it as weird and delusional, I've now started to really listen and embrace that. It also seems that my husband finds me beautiful, which I thought was also weird until I really started to change my focus. And I have a toddler who spontaneously bursts out with "Mommy, you look beautiful" when I take the extra five minutes to make an effort. And we all know toddlers don't lie...

So, it would seem, that I may be average, but I am beautiful. Beautifully average is awesome and I can live with that.

Nothing average here:

(nothing ever hurt like you, james morrison: I'm kinda in love with this song. Just fyi...)

Very Superstitious

In watching Castle a couple of weeks ago, about the Mummy Curse (yes, it NEEDS to be capitalized!), I started thinking...

I'm a fairly superstitious person. I'm not over the top, but things definitely make my back bristle at the thought. Ladder there? I will never walk under it. The salt thing? I may not understand completely, but I know it's bad. However. It's the personal superstitions that I get wrapped up in. For instance: I will NEVER discuss what I'm writing with anyone until it's in first draft form. I honestly believe the soul of the piece will be destroyed if I do. Or, at least, I'll jinx the flow somehow. Also? Saying a bad thing and then following it up with "I'm glad we don't have that" will make you get whatever "it" is. Seriously. Oh! Oh! Oh! Or, when you...

Right? We all have them. Little quirks we abide by to circumvent the bad karma. I think it's human nature's way of letting us feel like we're in control of this crazy ride we're all on. As if tapping on wood could ACTUALLY make the boogeyman disappear if he's headed our way. Most of this life isn't up to us, I think doing certain rituals help to calm troubled souls. Or stories to make excuses why bad things happen. Something to help us grasp life at its most vulnerable.

I used to chuckle at "those crazy people" who have their superstitions. But now I just think, woe be unto anyone who tries to laugh off another's particular superstition. That's just bad karma all on it's own...


(what goes around...comes around, justin timberlake)

So. Funny Thing.

Children's Place opened in our mall last week (I KNOW...it's like we're growing up to be a real city!) and Sammy and I stopped in. It wasn't too terribly busy, but busy enough. We loaded up on summer pj's and church socks and, standing in line, was when I noticed one of the employees. She looked SO familiar. I figured it was someone I knew a lifetime ago and tried not to think about it too much. Once I made it to the register, she came over and said, "I swear I know you". Of course, I replied that I was JUST thinking the same about her. She said the last time she lived here was 12 years ago and that she managed a store in the mall. Nothing in our stories were crossing in a way that we would remember one another, so we let it go.

About an hour later, Sammy and I were running some other errands when it hit me. I used to have lunch with her all the time. She was my friend's manager (my GEB's best friend) and we talked all the time while I was dating my GEB. It all came rushing back, standing there on the lotion aisle. We weren't really friends, but we were so integrated in each other's lives that summer so many years ago.

Next, Sammy and I met up with my friend Cheryl for lunch. I love my friend Cheryl. We knew each other in Portland and, around the same time and without knowing it (we had lost touch) both moved here. And it's lovely having a friend from Portland here, laughing at the crazy around us. Anyway. Lunch. We were chatting about this and that and we started talking about England. One topic led to another and she was telling me that her hubby was in England for a mission for our church in 1993(ish) or there about. Funny, I said. I have an ex who was there then, as well. Turns out, it wasn't him, but still. So CLOSE to a very bizarre connection. WEIRD. And still fun to tell stories of his crazy mom over a Cafe Rio sweet pork burrito...

I won't even get into the woman at the store the other day who remembered me and that we worked together nearly 15 years ago. That one was baffling. I have a great memory, but...I get so involved in the here and now that sometimes I forget I had a past, complete with people I've forgotten (and who knows how many people I've forgotten remember me!) and ties with others I may never know. This world, it's sometimes tiny.


(like to get to know you well, hojo)