math has always thwarted me. ALWAYS. it rears its head in my everyday life (yes, as my father and all my math teachers said it would) but it often does so in ways i don’t expect. there are neverending amounts and combinations and formulas and numbers pop up in their sneaky-ninja-like ways and frankly, I CAN’T HANDLE ALL THE MATH ALL THE TIME.
i feel like a prime number in a world of composites.
and now, even the letters are conspiring against me, like this:
because i only speak english, i’ve long been enchanted by foreign idioms. i love the word play of literal vs. figurative and how a combination of seemingly normal words can mean something totally different.
bulgarian: big cloud, little rain. (translation: all bark, no bite.)
brazilian: i have nothing to do with the fish. (translation: beats me.)
montana: all hat, no cattle. (translation: all bark, no bite.)
german: aller anfang ist schwer. (translation: all beginnings are difficult. the first step is the hardest.)
argentine: es un papa. (literal translation: it’s a potato.) (figurative translation: piece of cake.)
italian: in bocca al lupo. (literal translation: into the wolf’s mouth.) (figurative translation: good luck! break a leg!)
french: coup de foudre (literal translation: a bolt or flash of lightning.) (figurative translation: love at first sight.)
do YOU (yes, you) have any sayings i can add to my vocabulary?
who says you have to be crowded into the living room, kitchen, and/or dining room to hold a book club? we are ladies of the 21st century. we don’t need no stinkin’ couches. so pull up a blog and join in the conversation.
the members of the BOOK HUNGRY are (alphabetically): patty blount, kelly breakey, karla nellenbach, and myself. we pick a book to read. we discuss via email/phone. we post a review on our individual blogs the 3rd thursday of the month OR, well, we used to all post reviews. now, i think, it’s just patty and me. but anyways, go for it. click on their names above and if they have a review up, it’ll take you to there. enjoy.
this month’s BOOK HUNGRY selection is:
JUST ONE DAY by gayle forman
what it’s about from amazon:
Just One Day is the first in a sweepingly romantic duet of novels. Willem’s story—Just One Year—is coming soon!
my opinion:
woah, boy. i had a lot of expectations for this book considering IF I STAY (one of gayle’s other novels) is one of my all time favorites. we all know i don’t do well with expectations, and yeah, i didn’t do so well with this book. allyson goes through a lot of change and is wonderful at the end, but up until the end? yeah, i didn’t like her.
but the real reason i didn’t like her is probably because,umm, well…here, sarah from forever YA says it better… “It took me a while to warm up to Allyson, and ironically, it’s because she is a lot like my teenage self. (*abby nods, agrees*) She’s uptight and anxious and has absolutely no confidence when it comes to boys. Her internal freak-outs initially drove me craaaaazy cakes, but I completely understood her confusion. I just wanted her to get over it a lot faster than I ever did because seriously, jump Willem’s bones already! And also, when girl got depressed, DAMN. It SUCKED, and there was nothing I could do about it. Over the course of the story, she takes more risks, and gains more courage, and by the end, I was so proud of her, I wanted to go to one of those kids’ party places where they have trampolines everywhere so I could jump and jump and jump with joy. Allyson is a real, live teenager, artfully drawn with crippling emotion and soaring hormones, and I cherished our journey together. Also, seriously, let’s go to one of those trampoline places because they are AWESOME.”
in a nutshell, yes, that’s basically how i felt about this book. a slow beginning and middle, but by the end, this character and this book had found its stride. i was very dismayed when it ended. i wanted, nay, needed to know what happens next! although, if my sources are correct, i don’t have too long to wait because the companion novel JUST ONE YEAR comes out this fall!! woohoo!
you might be surprised by my enthusiasm considering my review above, but let it be known that i’ll read anything gayle forman writes because she’s got a magical gift with words.
this is on the front page of my WIP to remind me of the core of the story i’m trying to write:
“It’s the lack,
the gap, the absence
and the silence
that fills me
now.
How can so little
take up so much
space
inside of me?
Abigail Mumford 