Ex Libris: The House We Grew Up In

Late last week, I finished this novel. Then, I wasn't ready to write about it. I'm still not sure I am.

My summary: Lorelai was a remarkable woman--vivacious, filled with joie de vivre, charismatic, and determined to make magic wherever she went. Together with her husband Colin and their four children, they spend many years in their idyllic Cotswold house.

So how is it that Lorelai is now dead, having spent her last years estranged from her family and her last minutes in her car along the side of the highway? Her eldest daughter Meg is forced to ponder this when she returns to her childhood home to sort through Lorelai's effects, but this is complicated by an ugly, nasty complication: the once-beautiful home is practically in ruins, having been stuffed with the results of 30 years of Lorelai's worsening hoarding issues. As Meg begins the painstaking process of trying  to clean up the house, as well as rounding up the rest of their estranged family, she is forced to delve deeper into the family's collective memories to try to finally understand how her mother lived and died the way she did.

My verdict: God, this was a hard book to read. I mean, come on: A charismatic, semi-agoraphobic woman with a severe hoarding addiction, who goes downhill with age and alienates most of the people around her? It could have been about my mother. It felt like it was about my mother. And of course I ended up being so angry with Lorelai, so resentful of her. It was very, very difficult to be the reader, witnessing Lorelai's gradual decline into The Crazy, and it made me want to go home and throw out everything I own. (For the record, I am NOT a minimalist, so this book was quite unnerving.) There was a hell of a lot of bloated melodrama with Lorelai's family, and it should have been absurd, but somehow, it lightened the content of the book just enough so that it wasn't completely dark and troubling. Perhaps a bit like a mixture of Maeve Binchy and Jodi Picoult, with a certain flavor all its own--bittersweet.

Don't Judge a Book By Its Readers...

About halfway through the day, I had to go home. It was one of those days where I just feel bleh—nauseous and shaky and pukey. It took me the better part of the day to suspect why. It’s not ebola, or needavacationitis, or pregnancy (all of which were speculated by helpful people) but rather, something much worse. Something terrible and dark and sickening.

I’m reading a Nicholas Sparks novel.

It started innocently enough—a couple of my colleagues and I challenged ourselves to read authors and genres we don’t normally go for-westerns and romances, Clive Cussler and Danielle Steel and Nelson DeMille and Janet Evanovich and so on. The idea was to get a better idea of what it is our patrons are reading, what it is that appeals to them about all of these books. Here’s my progress, so far:

Summary: Some trashy chick in Trenton, New Jersey gets her ass kicked a bunch of times when she decides to become a skip-tracer.

Verdict: The protagonist becomes likable simply for her sheer, stupid stubbornness. However, the author's up to like, 21, in the series, and since in theory, she can go on into infinity...I think one's enough for me. I get the picture--my patrons like a good quick beach read.

Summary: Hurricanes, buried treasure, and ebola-stricken animals, all off the coast of Long Island. No wonder property prices are so high. 

Verdict: The main character is a total chauvinist pig, and he's funny too. I feel like a horrible person for enjoying his company so much. Fortunately, I suspect he's commitmentphobic, so I don't feel bad walking away from the series.

Summary: The son of a dockworker (or possibly an English swell, his mom has questionable judgment sometimes) makes his way up in the world, in 1920s and 30s Bristol.

Verdict: Surprisingly entertaining, although I saw the ending coming from a mile away, and it annoys me so much I probably won't read the next in the series. Also, apropos nothing, the author is an English baron.

Summary: An adventurous widow is taken captive on a fictional island in Southeast Asia, gets rescued by a well-meaning captain, gets married, learns a lot of martial arts, and becomes a victims-rights advocate.

Verdict: SO TOTALLY BELIEVABLE for 19th century England. Right. And why is it that when I was a kid I'd ONLY read the sex scenes, and now, they are the only ones I DON'T read? What the hell.

Summary: In South Dakota and Montana, Calamity Jane and her aging pals mourn the passing of the Wild West and join Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, but cannot stave off the inevitable death and abandonment and civilization.

Verdict: SAD SAD SAD OH MY GOD ARE ALL WESTERNS THIS SAD? If so, I should read more of them.

Summary: A widow is protected, or maybe haunted, by her dead husband in the form of a Great Dane.

Verdict: Not done yet, but can be summed up thus: Nauseating. Also, "needs more zombies," as per my friend Bethany.

Once I finish this one, though, it should get better. It'll only be Robyn Carr, Clive Cussler, Sue Grafton, Debbie Macomber, and Jeffrey Deaver left. And then I will never indulge in such craziness, ever again.