« book sale | Main | a little birdie, just had to share »

Sunday, October 05, 2003

mostly a book review: The Time Traveler's Wife

I finished The Time Traveler's Wife last night (see Friday's entry). I really enjoyed it. The first third or so was a huge mental puzzle about time travel -- and of course I was reading as fast as I could trying to figure everything out, thinking, "I hope this book is still this good once the gimmick is explained." And it was, it really was. There was a lot to it besides just the time travel -- a good love story, well-written characters, and excellent dialogue. So often dialogue in books really bothers me, because nobody really talks the way the characters do -- and I don't mean in an antiquated kind of way either -- it's kind of hard to explain, sometimes it just feels fake. This is why I don't write; I have some fun ideas for stories but I know I would suck at making the dialogue sound natural. Anyway. There were a couple of things about the book that made me wish this first-time novelist had had a better editor (and the library copy I had was an advance reader's copy, so who knows, maybe these things were addressed before the actual book came out). Two things that come to mind: Overall the prose is modern but eloquent and almost lyrical, but during the sex scenes the words used for body parts are straight out of a high-school boy's locker room. Not that I wanted to read about "quivering shafts" or any other harlequin-ish stuff -- but it just didn't sound right. Again, another reason I'm not a writer. ;-). And there were a few episodes in the book that were jarring because they seemed utterly gratuitous -- had nothing really to do with the story, just tossed in to allow the author to broadcast her opinion about something. The two young "punks" at the party come to mind. Overall, though, this is an excellent book, especially for a first novel, and you should go out and check it out right now and read it. Go on, what are you still sitting here for?!? ;-)


In other news, today is the day that T is finally going to come home from the fire he's been working on. We have missed him a great deal, and we are really looking forward to his arrival. (how's that for an understatement). The kids even cleaned, voluntarily, to make the house nice for Daddy! My seven-year-old son emptied the dishwasher of his own accord and without prompting, can you believe that? Having kids is paying off! ;-) (would insert a whole row of winks here if it would help you to understand that really, even if I never had to lift a finger to do a chore again for the rest of my life, that would be only a drop in the lake of the wonderfulness of being the mother of my children. But I'll spare you the row of winks, and just tell you.).


Other than that, there's nothing new. Seriously. Nothing even remotely funny has happened to me in the last 36 hours, just general happy sorts of things which bore diary readers to tears, so I'll keep them to myself. :)


random thought: After three days of the kids watching Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron once a day, I am ready to throttle Bryan Adams until his face turns purple...

--------