Three for Thursday on a Wednesday
I read The New Couple in 5B this week. Honestly, I was a bit suspicious when the only blurb was from Sarah Michelle Gellar. No shade to her, but that didn’t leave me with a lot of literary expectation, which can be a positive. I don’t know what drew me to it, but here we are.
I have written before that I am a perfect reader in that I buy it aaaallll. I don’t want to figure out the ending before the author wants me to. I don’t want to know who the murderer is until the author wants me to. I go in a blank slate and tend to stay that way.
What I’m telling you is that if I figure things out quickly and that wasn’t the intention, then the author has probably not succeeded.
Almost immediately my brain pinged, “Rosemary’s Baby.” And I was thinking it was so so close to it that there would be some sort of winking acknowledgment, but there was not. The author noted it as an “influence”. She should look up the definition.
It was fine. Zero surprises. Zero stars (beyond the one I give because writing a whole ass book is hard.)
My sister and I are revisiting Middlemarch with an annotated copy. The one we originally started with was the one below. It’s lovely and has french flaps, but her copy fell apart almost immediately and we like to be on the same page. (Literally.)
I’m not sure yet if I’m going to move my personal annotations over into the new copy or start fresh. I love Miss Brooke, so it won’t be hard to begin again. Will report back. Oh! Also, the paper is much nicer than I expected in the new copy.)
Flipping through my commonplace book I landed here with this from Courage to Change (date unknown): The only task I can pretend to perform perfectly is the one I have left entirely undone.
I’m going to have to put this at the top of the page in my notebook for tomorrow. Maybe print a sign for the wall.