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The Sunday Post is a chance to recap the past week, talk about next week, tell you what I’m reading, and share news. It’s hosted by The Caffeinated Book Reviewer, Readerbuzz, and Book Date.

 

 

 

The Sunday Post #264

 

 

 

 

On The Blog Last Week

 

• On Saturday there was a book haul.

 

 

 

 

On The Blog This Week

 

• On Tuesday I talk about the jobs I’d have if I was fictional.
• On Wednesday I list my most-anticipated March book releases.

 

 

 

 

In My Reading Life

 

Last week, I finished There There by Tommy Orange. If you’re on the fence about reading this book, get off the fence! It’s excellent. It’s a hard book to summarize because it doesn’t have a plot, but I understand the hype. The writing is stunning and the characters are very real. A few of the characters are a little too real. One of them is a failed writer who doesn’t know what to do with his life and spends way too much time eating junk food and screwing around on the Internet. Yeah . . . that’s how I spent all of 2018.

I guess I’d call the book a composite novel? Or character sketches? Or maybe a loosely connected batch of essays and short stories? I don’t know. It has a similar structure to The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien. It focuses on an event called The Big Oakland Powwow. Each chapter stars a different Native American character who is attending the powwow. I promise it’s not as boring as I just made it sound. I was very attached to the characters, which made the ending devastating. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this book. I have a feeling it’ll stay with me for the rest of my life. My only complaint is that it has too many characters. I sometimes had a hard time keeping the plotlines straight. That’s a small complaint. Please read this novel! It lives up to the hype.

There There might have given me a book hangover because I couldn’t get interested in An Ember In The Ashes by Sabaa Tahir. I read most of it and didn’t care about the plot or characters. It’s a young adult fantasy novel about the son of an evil military commander and a spy girl who is trying to rescue her imprisoned brother. Everything about this book is bland! The characters don’t have much personality and are indistinguishable from one another. The world is a generic YA fantasy world (abusive government + young people fighting against it + unrealistic fight scenes). I’ve given up on the book for now. I might pick it up again when There There leaves my mind.

Right now, I’m reading The Help by Kathryn Stockett. It’s historical fiction about upper-class Southern women and their maids. This book is working better for me because the characters are compelling. They have strong voices and interesting problems. I’m optimistic so far.

 

 

In The Rest Of My Life

 

Five things that made me happy last week:

 

1. Watching outdoor hockey. Hockey is best when it’s played on a frozen pond in the extreme cold.
2. My mom got her second COVID shot. I guess she’s immune to the plague now.
3. I ate pizza and garlic bread.
4. My half-marathon training program got a lot more difficult last week. I survived it. The training is going to keep getting dramatically harder for the next 5 weeks. I’m not looking forward to how sore my legs will be.
5. New books! All that running takes me past the Little Free Library four times a week. Of course I have to stop and see what’s in there. I found a few treasures that will be in my next book haul.

 

 

 

 

Watch Me Blather

 

 

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Take care of yourselves and be kind to each other. See you around the blogosphere!