Where I've Always Been

More and more lately, I've had this problem with blogging about books after I finish them.  There are two issues.  First, if I don't write a post within a few days of finishing a book--honestly, just one day if the book is only okay--I lose my passion for it.  I loved it when I was reading it, but three days later I'm into two or three new books and that passion is more of a nice memory.  You don't want your eulogy written by your high school boyfriend whom you haven't seen since graduation, even if he loved you with all his heart, because (unless he's kind of creepy), he's more wistful than mournful at your death.

Wow, that metaphor got away from me.  Anyway, the other prong to the problem of waiting till I finish a book to write a review is the flip side of that--when I'm in the middle of a book, I want to talk about it.  Right now I want to talk to you about how amazing N.K. Jemisin is at writing about gods, which I thought would be impossible, and to rebut a critique I read in a random Goodreads review by someone who didn't find her treatment believable (though I couldn't even read the whole review because I haven't finished the book so didn't read the spoilers).

I would also like to discuss how Mennonite in a Little Black Dress is really not about being a Mennonite or ex-Mennonite or growing up Mennonite, not really.  It's way more about being left by your husband for a guy named Bob whom he met on Gay.com and how the marriage was pretty messed up to begin with but your family is pretty awesome even if they're kooky and religious.  They are less kooky than a lot of Baptists I've read about.

And can I mention that no one should let David Rakoff go anywhere fun?  Because he sucks the fun from things--even as he claims to find them charming.  I cannot imagine him happy; he's like Marvin the Paranoid Android from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  I love his writing--when he's talking about things outlandish (life on a movie set) or significant (Log Cabin Republicans) I enjoy his work very much.  But who let him describe staying in a nice hotel?  Who even let him into Disneyland?

Also, I want to talk about things that happen in these books.  I would really like to do a long blog post about the implications of [well, I can't tell you that, because it happens near the end and you haven't read the book yet] in The Art of Fielding, and whether you think [some people] will feel that it's sensitively portrayed.  And did you find [this character] to be fully three dimensional?  Even when he [does this]?

Do you see what I'm saying?  This all burst out of me when I sit down to write a review of Rebecca Stead's When You Reach Me, which was a really, really great book, and I want to encourage you to read.  I'll write that next time, I promise.  But it'll have to be soon, if I'm going to sound even close to as passionate as I felt the day before yesterday.