Tag: reading

Weekend Things

LaurenLeave a comment

Things I wanted to do this weekend but didn’t: attend the Women’s March, go to yoga, see a movie, visit my sister’s new apartment.

So, I guess you could call this weekend uneventful, but in the best way possible because sometimes you just need one of those laid back, relaxing, unplanned sort of weekends to help you feel rested and restored.

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Aside from that part where you have to sit in downtown Denver traffic, I decided a trip to the library to pick up a new book is the best way to start the weekend.  I got Exit West and after reading the description (again), I’m really excited to start it.  We made a quick pit stop at Whole Foods for dinner supplies then, back at home, a bomber to share and fish foil packs with lots o’ butter.  We love this meal and I really liked that beer!

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Had a super slow and blissfully lazy Saturday morning at home before hitting up the gym then cleaning ourselves up for lunch.  I’ve been lusting over pictures of bánh mì sandwiches from Vinh Xuong Bakery for weeks and felt like I might die if I didn’t go there on Saturday (never dramatic!) so we made it our #1 priority.  The good news is the staff is quick and friendly, the prices are crazy cheap (especially considering they make everything in house) and their Vietnamese iced coffee is DELICIOUS but neither of us were blown away by the actual sandwiches.  C’est la vie!

Ran some errands afterwards and now Joey has new slippers, I have new sunglasses and our fridge is stocked with groceries.

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When we got back home, I started on some HOT PINK burger sliders (are beets the best natural food coloring or what?!) then used the hands-off dough rising time to read, so that was basically the best.  Oh and we made this roasted squash and grains with tahini-honey meal for dinner and all I can say is OH MY GOSH TAHINI-HONEY.  So so good!  We also watched Mr. Roosevelt and it wasn’t bad, per se, it just wasn’t good.  We made it through all of SNL afterwards and not going to lie, I thought Jessica Chastain was a great host.  She really went for it and I laughed A LOT.

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If you wake up on Sunday and it looks like this outside, you must do the following: cancel all your plans (sorry movie matinee and little sister, but I’m not leaving the house), make waffles, watch a billion hours of TV, read a billion pages of your book and food prep without feeling like there are so many other things you’d rather be doing.  I literally did not step foot outside the house and the day felt like SO LONG but maybe in a good way because I felt like I had hour upon hour to lounge but also be semi-productive.

Ended the longest day ever with the SAG Awards, Shameless and the feeling that the weekend was a good one.

Book Review: Beartown

Lauren3 Comments

A short recap of my history with Fredrik Backman.  I’ve read two of his books — A Man Called Ove and My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry — and loved them both!  That’s it.  That’s my history.  Told you it was short 🙂

I saw Beartown on a list of the best books of 2017 and was on board right away.  That being said, this book was a bit different for Backman.  There’s no curmudgeon!  Unless you count the town barkeep, but as she’s one of like 30 “main” characters, she doesn’t get a ton of airtime.

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Basically, this book is about a small town that eats, sleeps and breathes hockey and an incident involving the star player, Kevin, and the General Manager’s daughter, Maya.  What happens challenges everyone to question their own loyalties and morals.  It breaks the town but then remakes it.

The entire time I read it, something felt off but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it until I tried to explain it out loud to Joey.  Backman jumps back and forth between characters SO MUCH.  Every paragraph revolves around a different character.  In the beginning, I figured we were just meeting everyone, but it went on like that for the rest of the book.  There’s also SO MANY stories from the characters’ pasts (before the book takes place) included.  Again, in the beginning, this was fine but it continued on throughout the book, to the point where you spend more time hearing about things that happened in the past than you spend with the characters in the present action of the book.  It was wholly strange and it gave me an unending feeling that I didn’t really know the characters at all.

That being said, what you will get, and what I’ve come to love about Fredrik Backman’s novels, is a great deal of heart.  There are certainly many characters who are bad people with bad morals but there are just as many characters who know right from wrong, who show fierce loyalty and unfaltering compassion towards those they love and honestly, that’s enough to keep me reading.

Have you read Beartown (or anything by Fredrik Backman)?

What are you reading right now?