Tag: novel

Book Report: The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus

I got this book when I was looking for something different and not all bloody and violent. It said it was in the Barnes & Noble book club, so I figured it wouldn’t be awful. And it’s true! The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus, by Canadian author Emma Knight, is far from awful. It’s just what I needed.

It certainly has a cheerful book jacket.

It’s Knight’s first novel, but she’s obviously an experienced writer. I loved the fact that the writing was so good that it allowed me to focus on the characters, very nice young people going to university in Scotland. (One odd gaffe was that she asked for a bathroom and was laughed at in Scotland, but I know they say “washroom” in Canada.)

The main character is a young woman named Pen, who has a lot of family mysteries to work through, which introduce you to the other interesting characters, young and old, mostly a bit posh.

There’s a lot of discovering one’s sexuality in the book, but as I recall from the olden days that’s what you do at that time. All the people screw up, mean well, and learn. It’s quite entertaining to witness it all developing and to mentally cheer everyone on.

I liked that this book takes part in the not-too-distant past, so current events don’t creep in. Escaping to a familiar time, with familiar problems, and featuring satisfying solutions was great for me. I could use another light but satisfying novel like this.

Today’s color of crocheted squares was a pretty blue.

Warning: it takes a long time until the title makes sense, so just go with it.

Book Report: Remember Me Like This

First, thanks for the good wishes after the flying debris episode yesterday. I still have a mighty headache and a sore neck, but I’m staying home from work, taking ibuprofen, and have a convenient chiropractor appointment already scheduled for tomorrow. I’m not supposed to be looking at screens, so I am typing but not looking up except to fix typos. I am apparently driven to type!

The book

Bret Anthony Johnston is apparently very familiar with the Corpus Christi/Port Aransas area of southern Texas, which made his 2014 book, Remember Me Like This, a lot of fun for me. I used to go to the area every year with friends from my old church, until our Most Toxic Member Ever’s kid broke something and they refused to pay for it. I digress, again.

The other book referred to on the cover is a collection of stories. It won awards.

I’m glad the neighborhood book club chose this one, because it was not too gory or triggering for me (I m not fond of the “tiggering” thing, but that’s what happened in the last book, There There; I got sick to my stomach and could not read any further, even though I’d found it interesting up to then).

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