I may be the ONLY one celebrating the fact that it's mid-August. Be gone with you, August, you humid and hot beast, you! I am so excited for the Fall. I love cooler weather. While I do not miss all the layers that Winter brings, I love the crisp fall air and wearing ankle boots and little jackets. I like when I wake up in the morning and can get ready for work without sweating a single drop.
And then there are the Fall desserts! Pumpkin ALL THE THINGS!
There's still time for all that, I know, but can I be honest? I've already started to feel the Christmas itch. I officially began my Christmas list - no, not my wish list, but my list of what to get each person in my life - and the other day, when Bruce Springsteen's "Merry Christmas, Baby" came on my iPod at work, not only did I not change it, I sang along as I worked on hotel reservations for our next show in Amsterdam.
If the only thing you got from that was "why the F is it POSSIBLE for Christmas music to play at work right now, Sara?" then you must not know me too well. My Christmas playlist stays on my iPod all year long. I don't play it all year round, but it's there, in case the itch returns.
And it has. Oh it has, my friends!
I was excited to read this one when I read what it was about. Samantha has OCD and is about to start her senior year of high school. She's in a good spot in her therapy and is confident she will start making good confident decisions to better her life. She meets Charlotte, who introduces her to a secret poetry club and suddenly, her senior year becomes something so much more meaningful. What I thought would be a light YA read turned into something much more - Stone knows how to write a good story. I don't want to say more - you have to check it out to know what I mean!
First off, can I just share that I tweeted about loving this book and Miranda July herself favorited it? BOO YEAH! Moving on! Like so many other reviews online proclaim, this book is so amazingly wonderful and oh so weird! That isn't that surprising coming from Miranda July. If you're at all familiar with her work, it won't be out of the ordinary. I enjoyed every last bit of this book, even with it's oddities. That's the beauty of July's work - it's got character. Reading about Cheryl and her "methods" (for example, she only uses 1 pot, 1 plate, 1 glass, and 1 set of silverware and just washes them after each use) was so intriguing and I definitely related with how she felt at times.
GET THIS BOOK! I wasn't even halfway through this gem when I started recommending it to all my single friends. Single or not, everyone needs to read this. I didn't know what to expect when I read this, but it was so much more. I thought it'd just be another funny memoir but it was so spot on and real. Aziz did actual research and put a lot of effort into this. It was so relateable and so honest. So many truth bombs were dropped. It was amazing to read his take on how our parents' generation dated vs how we date now. For example, back then, there were limits but it made it easier to date. They were satisfied with a "nice boy" down the street. Now, we have SO MANY options (thanks technology) that we aren't satisfied anymore and are constantly looking for THE BEST. Crazy, right?
I wanted in on this book the moment I saw it was about a teacher/student relationship. I don't know why but COUNT ME IN! I wrote my own story that involved a student/teacher relationship (college, not high school) so perhaps that's why I enjoy a story like this. Either way, I loved this book even though there were some moments where it was kind of redundant. It was a more true to life story compared to some and I didn't feel like it was all that far-fetched. I kept hoping for a steamy scene sooner in the story than I got but hey, patience, right?
