Book #30: Scrambled Eggs at Midnight

I have excuses, many of which are valid, for getting so behind in my reading. This does not benefit you, however, and for that I apologize.

Scrambled Eggs at Midnight far exceeded my expectations. At first I was put off by the fact that the main characters were only fifteen, but this quickly changed. The book isn't overly heavy, yet it carries such weight. The themes explored really struck home with me, as clichéd as that may sound. What's more, the way the themes were handled impressed me; had they been written any differently I could definitely see myself disliking the book.

Ultimately, it easily could have ended badly. But it didn't. And sometimes you need that, I think. Sometimes you need a hopeful ending. I know I did. I cannot express how much I enjoyed this book, despite my vagaries here.

But what do I know? I like saying that, because I can pretend not to know everything I know. (19)

You say things that the truth can fit around, and it feels OK. Except, really, it doesn't. Every time I do it, I feel like I'm inside something and only I know what it is, and I'm alone in there, like I've built this big empty room around myself and there's no door. (21)

"Phi's okay," Abel says, taking the tongs and offering me a clean paper towel in exchange. I squint at him and he smiles. "I mean, if you like self-centered, overly muscled alpha males." (127)

"What if they think I'm a heathen?"

I tighten my arms around her. "Are you?" (261)

Book #29: The Catcher In the Rye

Please feel free to leave me hate mail in the comments for not keeping up with this. This past month has been an explosion of stuff happening, and reading fell to the wayside. Which is not at all awesome, but I'm still motivated to do this... so here we are.

I read most of this over a month ago, but I only just finished it now. There were, I kid you not, only about five pages left for me to read. The fact that I do this so often annoys me, but I do. Even more incriminating is the fact that I just looked and I have eight such books awaiting completion. Oops?

In any event, I enjoyed Catcher in the Rye much more than I thought I would. Maybe this sounds odd, but I always figured I might hate it. Holden's way of speaking was really neat to me, and his observations apt, and lots of other nice things.

I'm quite illiterate, but I read a lot. (18)

As a matter of fact, my father was a Catholic once. He quit, though, when he married my mother. (112)

It always smelled like it was raining outside, even if it wasn't, and you were in the only nice, dry, cosy place in the world. (120)