I'd completely do Bode Miller

Man the Olympics are cool. I was watching the men's Nordic combo last week and I honestly was just so exhausted by the end. The US men's hockey team beat Canada last night, which is insane. I felt like I was watching Miracle all over again.

I finished Woebegon Boy by Garrison Keillor (Book 11) last week, and I actually really liked it a lot. It was like a comedy of errors where the story of the main character was told through hilarious anecdotes of misfortune and grief. I wish that I could have related to the small town mentality a bit more, but it reminded me a lot of Groundhog Day cross bred with Fargo, which I really appreciated and enjoyed. I really loved the main character, John, and his crazy family that he didn't truly appreciate until after one of them was gone. His significant other, Alida, was seriously the perfect female counterpart. She was selfless, and intelligent, and thoughtful, and she is one of the best and most likable female characters that I've ever read. I'll easily grant this novel 4 stars for the crazy Grateful Dead references alone.

I also finished Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout (Book 12) last Friday. It was a quick read, but I absolutely adored every second of it. I can certainly envision it being a book that I return to year after year for the rest of my life, until I essentially become Olive. The novel is a collection of short stories chronicling the life of retired math teacher, Olive Kitteridge, from Crosby, Maine. What is unforgettable about these short stories is that while each chapter mentions Olive, or an acquaintance of Olive's, each is narrated by a different character and not every story line directly involves her. In some stories, she just happens to walk through the background, barely undetected by many but making an immense impact on the narrator. In others, she's sharing her deepest secrets and most traumatic experiences (being held hostage in a hospital in nothing but a modesty gown, watching her son's wife smoke cigarettes and drink beers while pregnant with her first and only grandchild). I wish that I had actually spread the book out a little more, but it was like an ice cold glass of lemonade on a humid August day. I barely even stopped to breathe. I'd give the book a solid 4.5 stars, but I wouldn't necessarily say that it's a read for everybody. Strout's writing is more about the details, more about what the narrator isn't saying, more about how this short anecdote is merely a building block in monstrous sky scraper that is Olive Kitteridge the character. I'd recommend it to any reader who enjoyed Let the Great World Spin, Dubliners, or Nine Stories, which just so happen to be three of my favorite books. I have a ridiculous soft spot for short stories and I'm not ashamed to admit it.

I started The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows (Book 13) this morning and I absolutely LOVE it. It's an epistolary novel, which means that it's written as a series of documents (in this case letters), and chronicles the German invasion of the island of Guernsey (located in the English channel). I already have a crush on Sidney, the dreamy publisher, and am deeply hoping for a hook up between him and Juliet, the sweetly impulsive author. But we shall see what happens...

In other news, James and I made the most delicious Thai Peanut Ground Chicken Meatloaf for dinner tonight. NOM! It had grated carrots, yellow onion, garlic, peanut sauce, Braggs, an egg, breadcrumbs, pickled ginger, red and black ground pepper, and some cumin. We had it with some sesame ginger rice and a tomato and mozzarella salad. It really is the hugest pain in the butt to cook without a kitchen, so I'm considering it a small victory for foodies everywhere.

The book with no ending (literally)

So I went to Glazed with Terry, my Aunt Nancy, Maryellen and Bonnie last night to work on our bowl set, and I got back the two bowls I painted last week. Literally amazing. I guess it just goes to show that a lack of planning isn't always a bad thing. I just used random colors and put stripes all along the inside of the bowls. I've been using this special glaze with these rocks in it that explode in the kiln, so there is no way to guess how the colors are going to come out. By the end of it, we're going to have a very expensive set of hand painted bowls and plates, but you know, spending my money on doing something that I really like to do and getting something tangible out of the deal is just about as good as it gets.

I finished The Gatecrasher by Madeleine Wickham yesterday (book 10) and I'm giving it 1 star. I was moderately interested in the characters, the plot was a little tired after seeing Wedding Crashers and listening to Gold Digger on loop, but what truly ruined this book was the fact that there was no ending. At all. Wickham had to put "The End" after the last paragraph or else the reader would have ripped the pages to shreds trying to find the closing paragraphs and pages. Just as the book is about to come to it's climax (Zara was going to meet her father finally, we were going to find out what happened between Fleur and Richard (Was she staying? Was he mad that she lied about Zara's father being dead? How much money did he really have after giving Phillipa and Antony their trusts?), we didn't know whether Lambert just get off scott free after trying to steal money from Richard and strangle Phillipa or if he was sued, and I have no idea what was happening with the romance between Antony and Zara), Wickham completely bailed on the book because honestly, she wrote herself into a corner. If she was going to keep consistent with Fleur's character, there would be no way for her to settle down with Richard after she found out that he just gave away 10 million dollars. There was no real evidence that she loved him at all, and she would have ended up leaving him. I hated it and I do not recommend it to anyone, at all, ever.

Ugh. Anyway...today we're supposed to get a huge snow storm and I 'm kind of concerned about getting home but we'll see how it goes. I started Garrison Keillor's Woebegon Boy on the train ride in this morning, but it's extremely detailed prose with small print so it might take me a couple days. I'll keep you posted.

All those Doritos commercials really worked.

James and I just watched the first half of the Super Bowl and were absolutely killing ourselves over the fact that we didn't have any Doritos. Normally Carlos brings some Nacho Cheese and Tacos at Midnight, but since we are in the midst of a kitchen volcano, we didn't have any one over to watch the game this year.

I've been kind of sick recently (okay, this past Friday I was REALLY sick), but it's given me some non-train time to read which has been nice. I finished Nightlight, Push, The Glass Castle and Valley of the Dolls since my last post. The ratings are below:

• 6. Nightlight (Harvard Lampoon): 3 Stars. The beginning and the end of this book were pretty hilarious, but the middle was absolutely dragging. Coming from someone who loves Twilight, but still realizes how ridiculous the concept of a teenage vampire romance novel is, I'd recommend it to anyone who can appreciate the true definition of a parody without getting offended. Some Amazon reviewers were pretty pissed, but I wouldn't necessarily take their word as final.
  

• 7. Push: A Novel (Sapphire): 4 Stars. Push seriously blew me away. The frankness and intensity of Sapphire's words were both shocking and unbelievable, but the portrait that she painted of Precious Jones was something that needed to be shared with the world. The fact that a girl with so little could still see a slight ray of hope in such a dark and scary world was inspiring to say the least. A sure fire read for anybody who ever wants to work with children or teenagers.
  

• 8. The Glass Castle (Jeannette Walls): 4.5 Stars. This was an amazing book to read after Push, since I was already in that kind of mindset. The memoir, told by Jeannette Walls about her life growing up with an alcoholic father and an artist mother, was seriously a gem that I am so happy to have stumbled upon. While many people chastise memoirists for their tendency to exaggerate, self aggrandise, or for their inability to tell a story subjectively, I think that sometimes that is the true beauty of the tale. The way a seven-year-old sees the world, and the way they remember things happening, may not be the exact truth, but it's their truth. It's what they've based their entire memory and life on, and I think that says a lot. Besides, there aren't many people in the world whose absolute true life story is interesting enough to sell thousands of copies of; we all need a little juicing up to make our stories worth while.
  

• 9. Valley of the Dolls (Jacqueline Susann): 3 Stars. I've wanted to read Valley of the Dolls for quite sometime and last weekend at the thrift store I found it for 35 cents and couldn't resist. It's certainly a book that I'm never going to forget (seriously, how could ANYONE forget Neely O'Hara?), but it wasn't one that I was satisfied with. The entire time I was reading it, I was enamored with the thought of Lyon and Anne. Everyone else's lives were just so tragic and heart breaking, but there was always the beautiful prospect of happiness lying in Lyon and Anne's relationship. I even said to myself, "I don't care what happens as long as Lyon and Anne are together!" Boy was I wrong. Neely and Lyon are two of the most despicable characters I've ever encountered, and can't wait for the day that someone brings home an ugly pet so I can name it Neely O'Hara.
  

Tuesday Edit: I just started a little bit of fluff reading in between all of these heart-wrenching tales of abuse, poverty, and deception. Yesterday I started Madeleine Wickham's The Gatecrasher and should be done by my train ride home today. It's semi-trashy chick lit, so I wont have much to critique. I wasn't even sure if I was going to admit to the chick lit that I indulge in every once in a while on here, but since I'm the only one who reads this I don't see why I shouldn't.