Feb. 14: Happy Valentine's Day, Snow Day, and, therefore, VACATION!

An odd stutter-step to start vacation, but we're here! Heavy snow (early release yesterday), then heavy rain, and now, it looks like more snow. Weird. Not sure how we'll "celebrate," but tomorrow I'm off to Julie and Portland, which we are both looking forward to! So. Knitting? Reading? Quilting? Cooking? Something!


Still Life with Bread Crumbs by Anna Quindlen
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I like Anna Quindlen and this book was a good palate-cleanser after a bunch of sad, troubling reading, but I wish it had been stronger overall. Upon reflection, I decided that she was trying too hard to make a nice story into a Novel About Something. Characterization is a bit thin, the dog is poorly developed, the troubled sister plot doesn't work well, and there were some details that were just wrong: could she survive in a little house with only a woodstove and no heat for the winter? Could she hide the way she did after the big storm without anyone coming to check on her/run into her? Not a really good sense of how small towns (or cold houses in bad winters) really work. . . . The reader was somewhat wooden and awkward, so the book came across as trying too hard overall. However, by the end, the story caught me and I loved the happy ending.

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