Tag: reading

Weekend Things

Lauren2 Comments

I realized something important this weekend.  I like having plans.  I like being busy.  I thrive off that kind of lifestyle.  Our Saturday was wide open and my brain was like, “Paint the laundry room?”  “Make chocolate bark?” “Go on a run?”  “Take a nap?”  And in true anti-decision-making form, my brain then exploded.  The good news is, busy or not, this weekend still had all the things that make me happy.  Aka, Biker Jim’s, Rockies game, Saturday morning coffee, finding a new book, family breakfast and lots of walking.

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Sometimes you just need to pre-game your Friday night with a cat nap.  For the record, it didn’t really help but a spicy Vegan dog + two giant Arnold Palmers did.  Rockies win!
IMG_7767 Joey likes to put my jacket hood on and pretend it’s his Darth Vader helmet.  And I like to pretend not to see that spider web in the corner of our wall.IMG_7757The weekend forecast was all full of clouds and rain, but before that we had a lovely sunny Saturday so a walk to get coffee was in order.

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We couldn’t decide if we wanted to take it to go or stay and get breakfast, but you know me, I can’t resist oatmeal in Mason jars, coffee shop people watching or sipping an almond milk latte out of a cute white mug.IMG_7769 IMG_7770 Stopped by the little “take a book, leave a book” library on our way home and I found a Vonnegut.  I may have read Slaughterhouse-Five my first semester of college or I may have pretended to read it and feel like I should give Vonnegut a second chance.  Either way, the colors on this book cover are amazing.IMG_7765My iPhone camera couldn’t decide where to focus.  Though, now that I really look, Curtis Cow’s eyes look pretty clear.  This was my first full glass of our newest beer and yeah, safe to say the 10.5% alcohol reading is about right.  Whoa!  Oh and I wore Joey’s FitBit all day (because I was curious!) and got to 13K steps so I was feeling like the FitBit Queen.  FYI, that thing does not even count your steps if you’ve got both hands pushing the grocery cart.

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Sunday was RAINY.  We walked to meet Joey’s grandparents at breakfast, had them over to see the house progress, then basically parked it on the couch for the rest of the day.  When the weather’s bad, we all just laze about, watch six episodes of The Wire and make ourselves chocolate chip pancakes for dinner, right?

P.S. I only posted ONE food picture on Insta this weekend.  What is my life even about?!

A Book Review: We Were Liars

LaurenLeave a comment

CAUTION: Major spoilers ahead.

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Alternate titles for this post:

That time I realized not all YA lit sucks.

So I joined a book club I found online… does that make me a loser?

When plots twists make you feel like your whole world flipped upside down.

we were liars

So yeah, after wanting to join a book club for years but not knowing any to join or where to even find one to join, I put the question out to the Facebook world and was directed towards the Meetup app, where I found a girls-only group to join!  I can’t decide if that’s awesome or desperate.  Is this like online dating for fellow reading fanatics?  Anyway, I’ll admit I was a little apprehensive when I hit up B&N and found this month’s book, We Were Liars, in the Young Adult section.  In my experience, YA lit is pretty superficial, predictable and kind of mindless.  But!  Turns out my literature snobiness needed a check and it totally got one with this book.

The book, in a nutshell, is about a rich white family that spends every summer on a private island, but the eldest grandchild (who is also the narrator) has some kind of accident during “Summer 15” and the rest of the book details her struggle to remember what happened and why no one in her family is willing to talk about it.  In the end, it turns out “the accident” was a fire she started with her cousins that resulted in their deaths.  She’s the only one who lived.  Whoa!  What!  I read that twist during my lunch break one day and was so distracted for the rest of the work day.

I guess the reason I liked the book so much was because it defied all my expectations.  The characters weren’t stupid.  The writing wasn’t juvenile.  The story was deeper than some WASP-y private island drama.  And I DID NOT see the plot twist coming.  In fact, no one in my book group saw it coming.  If  you think about it, that’s pretty impressive.  I actually found the writing to be enjoyable and creative.  There’s some interesting stuff going on stylistically that sort of reminded me of poetry.  I.e. short choppy sentences, line breaks, repetition (but not in an annoying overdone way), etc.

What’s more, the dialogue was done well (I usually think dialogue is entirely unnatural/unrealistic), the main characters were well developed and felt real (which is probably why I was doing some serious holding back of tears at the end) and the plot felt thought out.  One of my biggest book pet peeves is when I can feel that the author has a general idea of things but is kind of winging it and figuring out details as they go.  That wasn’t the case here.  E. Lockhart seemed to have a firm grasp on her characters, her plot and the details that connected the first page to the last.  Her writing felt confident.  I like that 🙂

P.S.  I think I really liked book group!