Mini-reviews

Three good books in the past three days:

The Hours by Michael Cunningham
Beautiful and depressing and sad, and yet not. It may contain a truth about life that I am not willing to accept.

Four Blondes by Candace Bushnell (author of Sex and the City)
About four women in the New York City élite. Janey is a model who seeks a new man every summer just so she can spend the season at the Hamptons without having to pay. Cecelia is a socialite princess whose anorexic-and-psycho-in-denial diary is disturbingly hilarious. These women are so, so superficial and annoying, but it’s fun to get inside their heads for a while.

Silent to the Bone by E.L. Konigsburg (of The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs Basil E Frankweiler and, one of my favorite books, The View from Saturday)
A baby suffers a nonaccidental head injury and her thirteen-year-old brother is blamed. But he won’t speak a word. His best friend believes in his innocence and is faced with the difficult task of trying to discover the truth. Konigsburg demonstrates once again her acute knowledge of middle-schoolers and the way they think and feel. This is a lovely story of friendship and of human nature.

I turned down that apartment I applied to. Some weird stuff happened with the rent that made me uneasy about the management. Instead I’ve applied to another place. I find out today. Let’s hope this all goes well, finally.

It is good to have a library card. And a library within walking distance.

I love this neighborhood and the people in it and I will be really sad when I move into my new apartment. My parents don’t think it’s a good area, but I disagree. There’s a sense of community here that I really appreciate. Strangers talk to one another at the supermarket, which is why I keep going to that one even though the lines can keep you waiting for fifteen minutes. People smile back when you pass on the sidewalk. At the library, on a Monday afternoon, almost all the tables are filled with adults helping kids with their homework. I like this place.

[This post was imported on 4/10/14 from my old blog at satsumabug.livejournal.com.]