improved attention span is improved

I should tell you I am extremely pleased that I actually still manage to finish books nowadays. Even if they're depressing like whoa.

To wit:

The truth is, I was warned that it was sad, as in Hang myself afterward-sad. And I just said, Perfect!




Revolutionary Road (Richard Yates)

Oh, I could say I wasn't emotionally prepared to take on the story of the Wheelers, but then again, I don't think I could have prepared for it anyway, even if I wanted to. I mean, I knew it was going to be sad -- apart from the warning, that is. I mean, I opened the book, and there it was, there's this... you know, this heavy thing hanging over the words. I'm always asking myself, God, how do these people end up together? April was difficult, and so was Frank, and page after page of miscommunication and painful disconnects, I mean, was I really holding out for a little hope somewhere, that toward the end these two people would make it work, somehow? They were so hopeful and yet so impossibly helpless, and reading everything felt like I was just sitting there listening to a friend who can't get his/her/their act together, and you're just saying, It's going to be all right, things blow over, don't they? (Don't they?) for the lack of anything else to say and it's all just heartbreaking, and then Yates hits you with his damned pretty language page after every page so that you can't let the story go even if it already hurts and what of that ending, really? At the end of it, I was like, That was it? And then, How could these last few pages be more painful than all the rest of the pages that came before them combined? Astounding.

*

Also, speaking of improved attention spans. Andrea picked this book up from Book Sale earlier today - lately she's been in love with Elizabeth Berg's writing (thanks for the rec, Kat!) - and upon getting home after work at around 9:30 p.m., I sat down with her "Art of Mending" while applying hot compress to my somewhat swollen sprained ankle, and guess what? It's now 1:45 a.m. and I'd just put it down some twenty minutes ago. Yes, I finished it because I couldn't put it down.

The Art of Mending (Elizabeth Berg)

Oh you know me, I love a little family drama in my books -- this one has family death, mother issues and sibling issues (JACKPOT LOL) and at 236 pages Berg manages to weave these issues together in a way that doesn't seem so... I don't know how to put it, thin? I mean to say it doesn't seem to me that some parts were left somewhat lacking, and all in all, I'm satisfied as to how she handled the main arcs of the story. I ended up understanding them all, surprisingly - I like Laura, I understand Caroline, and for some reason, I find their mother Barbara even relatable, if not altogether familiar. Also, whoever says I don't like male characters I encounter in books? I am totally in love with Laura's husband Pete here -- I love his level-headedness most of all, because it reminds me of my dad (and myself, I like to think this was the best thing I inherited from my father.) I love how Maggie reminds me of Julie (oh to be fortunate enough to have a friend like that in a lifetime :))

Oh I'm in love with Berg's prose, totally; reading her words feels like listening to an older sister or something. Yes, I admit thinking, Wait, nothing comes after? when I got to the last punctuation, but looking back, it was not so much that the ending was abrupt as it was just me yearning for more words from the woman, so to speak.

Okay, I don't do reviews much, yeah? Obviously. I just want to write here that today, I finished these books. That is all.