Breaking News
I Kristen Joy Wilks have stopped reading a book 1/3 of the way through.
I know that this is alarming. I always finish books. Unless they scare me and I find myself lying awake at night drenched in cold sweats unable to arise and stumble to the bathroom for fear that Bunnicula might hop out of nowhere and guzzle down my vegetable juices. Then of course I abort my reading experience. But for the most part I finish the books that I start. Even the wretchedly written ones. I call in research and laugh and pray and hope that my prose is not similarly hilarious to others.
But yesterday I stepped out of my normal behaviour and closed a book of short stories before even finishing half of them. They were all about being sweet sixteen and strangely every one was terribly depressing. Anorexia and cheating boyfriends and sexual predators, Oh My! Depressing indeed. And when I read the second story that featured two girls smooching I despaired of the lighthearted yuck free reading experience that I so desired. I even found myself moping around the house due all of that teen angst. Too much! So, if you see a short story collection with a cute pink cover about being sweet sixteen, beware. It contains much too much drama, despair, and of course inter-girl necking.
gag…..good for you! some books are not worth finishing!!
I think I’ve only ever quit reading one book and that was a book called Fair is the Rose or something like that by Liz Curtis Higgs. I found out later (from Becca) that it was the second in the series, but about halfway through I had this premonition that the lady was going to have her baby taken away from her and given to her selfish younger sister. So I skipped to the end and when I found out I was right I just quit reading. Could have been partly that Cory was only about 6 weeks old at the time and I just couldn’t deal with it.
Becca told me the stories are based on the Jacob, Rachel, Leah story from the Bible and in the 3rd book she gets her child back… but I just couldn’t handle it!
Now that I’m a mom I find myself unable to watch movies that feature children in danger. At least children that are the same age as mine. That scene in “Pirates of the Caribbean” where the toddler is crying for his Mama as the pirates sack Port Royal always depresses me for the next 20 minutes of the movie. So the portion directly following the toddler incident is the least appreciated part for me even though I love that film and the toddler is rescued by his mother. Weird huh?