A Bend In the Road - Critical Monkey Contest Entry #2

A Bend in the Road by Nicholas Sparks

So I was torn by what to read next for my Critical Monkey Challenge, because I am sadly, quite far behind. Is it my fault that I've been assaulted by books that I actually wanted to read!?! Well, I went so far as to purchase a Danielle Steele novel (which will probably be my next entry), but because of time, I chickened out at the last minute and grabbed the much shorter "A Bend in the Road" by Nicholas Sparks.

Nicholas Sparks is not someone whose books ever appealed to me. His particular style of writing always sounded like the books I would never read as a kid. The ones about real people dealing with hard issues. Books about cancer or death, divorce, or eating disorders never appealed to me. Books were a way to escape into different worlds or times, and the idea of reading a book about the girl who loves her boyfriend but he gets killed and she is left alone, never sounded worth reading, unless that boyfriend was killed by a vampire. Seeing other girls at school carrying those books around made me clutch my copy of "Dealing with Dragons" close to my heart. That's not to say that I don't enjoy a good romance. I even smuggled in Harlequin romance novels to read at night (away from the prying eyes of parents), but they were always "Historical Romances" and were set in far away places that took me as far away from "real life" as possible. And mainly, lets be honest here, I read them for the sex scenes (I was 15, after all). And though I have ventured out into more "issue conscious" fiction since High School, "A Bend in the Road" still seemed like a story NOT right up my alley.

The plot is relatively simple: Centering around a man, Miles, whose wife, Missy, died in a hit and run car accident 2 years before, Miles works as a sheriff in this small town (of course), but was never able to find the driver of the car. He has been struggling to keep going and raise his son, Jonah, until he meets, Sarah Andrews who brings new life and love to he and Jonah. But (SPOILER ALERT) when Sarah's brother comes forward with new information regarding Missy's death, Sarah and Mile's love and relationship are threatened.

My Thoughts: Okay, judging by my description, you can tell I wasn't all that thrilled with the book, and I think the reason I keep going back to the books I read in high school is because I feel like this is exactly the book that the other girls used to read. The wording, sentence structures, and frequent cliches, make it seem like it was a book written for teenagers or tweens. Maybe that's just the mass market appeal structure I'm seeing, but I felt like I was reading a "dumbed down" style of writing. Damn, now I feel all pretentious, but I guess that's what comes from reading this book. Sigh.

Part of what really bugged me, aside from the writing, was the immense amount of characters "doing the right thing." When Sarah was hiding something about her past from Miles, she hesitated, looked distraught, then "told him the whole story." When Miles isn't sure he should open up about his feelings for Missy and what her death meant to him, he stops then tells Sarah "the whole story." On and on in this book, people are telling each other "everything."

Is this a cheap cop-out Mr. Sparks? Did you just get tired of writing and decide to use this phrase every time!!?!?

Okay, sorry about that, back to the review.

But aside from the massive amount of "I Statements" and "doing the right thing," all of the sudden, Miles, when he finds out who the "mystery driver, really is, turns into a Crazed Widower Bent on Revenge! Nothing can stop his rage and fury. I half expected him to rip off his shirt, turn green and shout "Hulk Angry!"

Unfortunately for the reader, he doesn't, so it just feels totally weird, and frankly some of the things he did really cheesed me off, including the part when he yelled at Sarah and roughed up some people that didn't need to be roughed up. When he finally does calm down enough to return to Human form though, everyone seems to automatically forgive him, and through some long talks and "sharing of feelings" it all works out in the end.

And one more thing, did you know that Nicholas Spark's sex scenes pretty much sound like this:

"Then they made love the whole night."

That's it. More of that descriptive language at work, eh Nick? At one point I completely missed the fact that the characters had even had sex. It went from, "he placed a kiss on her lips," to, "they woke up next to each other." What the Hey!? I had to go back, and find the tiny sentence of "and then they made love all night,” wedged in there.

Sigh.

My overall opinion of the book isn't too high, if you could tell. I feel like I should make a t-shirt that says "I read a Nicholas Sparks book and all I got was this crappy t-shirt, which I had to make myself." Oh well, at least I get to cross another entry off my Critical Monkey contest now. :-)

Happy Thanksgiving!!

I am so thankful for my life! I can't imagine one without my family, friends, and all the fun I have everyday. I hope everyone has a happy and healthy Thanksgiving!

Love,

Beth :-)

The Gone Away World - Update

Thanks to Jeanne at Necromancy Never Pays, I've been reading The Gone Away World by Nick Harkaway. I'm only about a third of the way through at the moment, but the prose is so unique, and the ideas so exciting, that I really wanted to share two of my favorite quotations so far.

I made a failed attempt to twitter these earlier tonight, but when I realized that just one of my favorite sections would take up about 5-6 tweets, I gave up and thought I'd update on the blog! So enjoy, and I'll definitely be posting a review of the novel when I finish.

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"What I am about to tell you...may make me sound like a crazy person. So I need you to remember, to bear in mind very carefully, that I have an IQ of such monstrous proportions that if, for the sake of argument, I were totally insane--if the palace of my intellect were a scary ivy-covered mansion in Louisiana with peeling paint and dead flowers and a garden full of murdered corpses planted by a man named Jerry-Lee Boudain--I am so much more intelligent than anybody else you will ever meet that there would be no way for anyone to tell."

"Modern war is distinguished by the fact that all the participants are ostensibly unwilling. We are swept towards one another like colonies of heavily armed penguins on an ice floor. Every speech on the subject given by any involved party begins by deploring even the idea of war. A war here would not be legal or useful. It is not necessary or appropriate. It must be avoided. Immediately following this proud declamation comes a series of circumlocutions, circumventions and rhetorico-circumambulations which make it clear that we will go to war, but not really, because we don't want to and aren't allowed to, so what we're doing is in fact some kind of hyper-violent peace in which people will die. We are going to un-war."

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So far I am highly enjoying this book, although it did take me awhile to fall into the authors rhythm. Now....back to reading!

Two Stories

Two very interesting things happened to me this weekend..

A Rescue Mission
Saturday was Clayton’s, my brother-in-law, wedding day, so I dropped Daniel off at the church for some picture taking, and I tried to decide where to go to spend the next hour. I started to dial his mom’s number when all of the sudden, I noticed that my car seemed to be acting odd. It also appeared that I wasn’t moving. I looked around and hit the gas, but the car didn’t budge, then I tried reverse and it stayed stuck. So I jumped out only to realize that my car was stuck in a ditch, and the back driver’s side wheel was sticking straight up in the air.

I looked around to see if anyone had seen my predicament, and I immediately saw Daniel, Clayton and the rest of the Wedding Party Groomsmen running towards my car. Together they heroically pushed me out of the ditch and I went on my merry (and embarrassed) way. Needless to say, I was the butt of a few jokes for the rest of the day, but I'd like to call it a wedding day miracle. Also, the moral of the story is: Do not try to dial a cell phone while driving.

The Monster in the Bushes
Every fall I buy Mums to decorate my porch, then I promptly proceed to forget to water them and they die. Well Friday, determined to be a good “mum” to my mums, I grabbed a big pitcher of water only to discover that it had rained the day before, so they were already a bit waterlogged. Unsure of what to do with the unneeded water, I just threw it in a couple of my bushes, and that is when I heard the sound.

“Mew. Mew.” Such a soft noise, but it was very distinct. My mind started racing. Maybe there was a cute cuddly kitten living in one of my bushes. I listened for the sound again, but after a few minutes things were still silent. I looked around the front of the bush to see if I could get a glimpse of the mysterious kitten. By this time, I was getting a little bit wary, but I decided to get on my front porch and see if I could find anything from behind the bush. “Here kitty kitty kitty kitty,” I cooed a few times, each time moving my head closer to the bushes in question. “Here kitty kitty kitty…”

Suddenly the bush started moving and rustling and I dropped my water pitcher, screamed like I was being attacked by zombies, ran in my house and locked the door. After about 10 minutes of heavy breathing and peering through my front window at the bush, I called Daniel who refused to believe me when I told him that there was something living in our bushes, and even had the nerve to tell me that it was ”just the wind and I needed to stop imagining things.” Well I have news for him, “Mr. It’s Just the Wind,” there IS something living in the bushes and it’s probably some sort of zombie mutant cat that will eventually try to eat our brains. And when that happens, he’ll be sorry, and I’ll want to tell him “I told you so," but I won’t because I’ll be far away in my zombie protection shelter. So take that Daniel!

Ummm, but the moral of the story is: Do not water your plants.

It's Coming!!

So October is my favorite month. First of all, there is great weather, (present circumstances aside), beautiful scenery, great food (I loves me some chili), and of course, there is HALLOWEEN!

My all time favorite holiday, I love Halloween more than a pig loves shit. And even though I stole that quote from Julie Powell, it's still true. Although she was talking about her husband, and not Halloween....but this is serious business here.

Top 5 Things I Love About Halloween:

5. Making Spooky Food: I am always so happy when I get to plan out party food, and no party food makes me happier than "spooky" food. Why does taco dip taste better if it looks like a spiderweb? Why do cookies seem a little crunchier when they look like fingers? One of life's great mysteries I guess.

4. Trick or Treaters: So because Daniel and I haven't squeezed out any little ones yet, that means I don't really get a chance to meet the neighborhood kids, or the adult ones either, for that matter. But on Halloween, my haunted graveyard, multiple jack-o-lanterns, and giant pot of candy draw the kids to my house like zombies to a shopping mall. So I get my kid fix in for the year, plus my neighbors are reassured that we aren't some crazy childless weirdos. (Except...we sort of are)

3. Scary Movies: I absolutely adore scary movies, and I'm not talking about some crappy Torture Porn movie like Saw or Hostel. I mean, some really well-made tense/frightening/scary films. Poltergeist is my all time favorite Halloween movie, and we've watched it on Halloween for the past 4 years. For more on this, see my post from last year. Movie Time

2. Costumes! Ever since I dressed up as Igor in the 3rd Grade, I realized that dressing up was awesome. And no crappy box costumes for this lady. The only good costumes are the ones you make by hand. It doesn't have to be perfect, and it could be made of your old clothes, but as long as you "made" it, it will feel so much more special. I was a zombie named Betty last year and it was amazing! She had an entire history, and a very nice (tasting) boyfriend named Steve.

1. My annual Halloween Party! The best part about my Halloween party, other than partying it up with all my friends, is that it encompasses all of the above! Not much in the world better than, being dressed up with my friends, eating spooky food, catching Poltergeist and scaring the trick-or-treaters. Last year's bash was amazing. Check out this post from my friend Nikki's blog. I was too lazy to update last year, but she did a great job!

Anyway, just wanted to display this new banner to remind me and everyone else of what's to come!