84, CHARING CROSS ROAD, by Helene Hanff

basically, it's 20 years of correspondence between an american woman and a british bookseller.

here's what i wrote on a friend's FB wall:
you were right!!! why, oh WHY didn't i listen to you???
"do you have this book?" "yup, here you go." 20 YEARS OF THIS!!!!! and why did that woman go to south africa and australia?? and what happened to the woman whose hub was in the RAF?? someone thought this was worth publishing?!?! and it's a "CLASSIC"?!?! well, no accounting for some people's tastes, i guess.

sigh. i liked guernsey better. although i did notice helene's tendency to write in lower case, with the occasional word in caps... that pleased me, for some reason. ;)
 
and the fact that it was a true story was actually disappointing to me. if i want to read non-fiction, i have a house full that i could read!! honestly, i thought i would like this more. i was all set to enjoy a nice little book of letters. but really, there's no story. i liked helene, the woman. she writes in lower case, rarely capitalizing anything. i appreciate that. and her sense of humour and writing style is quite similar to mine. so i really, truly, well nigh DESPERATELY wanted to enjoy this book. but i didn't. 'nuff said.

SEEING ME NAKED, by Liza Palmer

it's about a young woman who feels overshadowed and intimidated by her socialite mother, and famous writer father and brother, and how she tries to break free from that pressure.

i'll admit, it took me a while to get into this book. for the longest time, i just didn't care about her character. although i did laugh early on at her brother's book reading, when someone in the audience asked his father who his literary influences were, and he replied, "lady, i named my Raskolnikov. you do the math." LOL

after a while, though, once she met Daniel Sullivan, that the writing seemed to pick up, and it was easier to get the feel of the book. until that point, she seemed stuck in some existential malaise, and so was the writer. but once she met him, everything seemed to pick up, and you can sense the tension in her as she is torn between the life she really wants and the life her family expects her to have.

all in all, not a bad book, though my life would have been just as rich having not read it.