Month: December 2020

Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid

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Started: 12/26/20
Finished: 12/27/20

I can’t remember where I heard about this book, but it starts out HARD.  A twenty-something black woman babysits for a white family, and one night, the mother calls her unexpectedly to take the toddler out for a little bit so they can deal with an emergency at home.  The babysitter tells her she’s not dressed like she normally is (she was out with friends), and the mother says that’s fine, so she takes the toddler down the street to a local expensive grocery store to just kill time.  A shopper calls security on her, implying that she kidnapped the little girl, and it’s a REALLY tense scene.  It turns out fine, and the rest of the book talks about the aftermath, but in a very anticlimactic way.  Well, until the climax.  Anyway, it’s about how all these characters see each other and how they react and think about themselves, and it’s pretty funny and enjoyable, which I did NOT expect after that scary beginning.

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett

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Started: 12/15/20
Finished: 12/19/20

I’ve been a little off Ann Patchett for a few years.  I’m afraid to re-read Bel Canto, which I read several times years ago and LOVED and gave as gifts to many many people.  What if I have changed enough that I don’t love it anymore?  Anyway, I picked up The Dutch House.  First, it’s good.  When I couldn’t read it, I wanted to read it.  Second, turns out that in order for me to LOVE a book, I need it to have a plot.  It’s not that nothing happens – it’s a family saga, plenty happens – but it’s a family saga, so there’s no mystery to solve, no murder to avenge, no THING to DO.  And I have learned that I prefer books that have a THING the characters need to DO.

Mommy Craft FAIL…mostly

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I thought it might be nice to make one of those clay handprint ornaments while Jack’s hands are still small enough to make it a reasonably-sized ornament. I could make two and send one to John’s mom, earning daughter-in-law of the year status once again! I found an article with directions, an easy baking soda clay recipe, and pictures of the final product. So sweet-looking, and totally within my beginner-craft skills.

The clay part went smoothly. We made it at Emily’s house with the kids helping with the ingredients (pouring and stirring). Handprints went…mostly okay. Good enough. The edges weren’t perfectly round, but there’s some charm in that, right?

I took my two home and let them dry for a couple of days before decorating. I liked the look of the glitter in the example I had, so I followed the directions…mostly. They called for regular glue and a paintbrush to get it into all the corners. I have a glue stick. The parts I want the glitter to stick to are all raised above the actual handprint, so that should totally work, right? …Mostly.

Oh my god, no.  No, no, no.  First, the thing isn’t remotely smooth, so there are lots of places a glue stick can’t reach.  Second, glitter is TERRIBLE.  Who thought glitter would stick to glue?  So for the second one, I thought, well, maybe I can color in the outer part of ornament using a crayon.  Crayon will work on dry clay, right?  Well, yeah…And now I have two ornaments that appear to have been decorated by Jack.

That would be TOTALLY fine…if they had been decorated by two-year-old Jack, not 41-year-old me.

So.

Glitter ornament: I think I have to toss it.  I could start fresh, do a new handprint and leave it undecorated.  That has a certain appeal.

Green ornament: it’s not terrible…?  And it has a story? I might keep it, but I don’t think I’m sending it to John’s mom.

I clearly have a lot to learn in the toddler crafts department.

When No One is Watching by Alyssa Cole

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Started: 12/5/20
Finished: 12/9/20

I found this thriller on a recommendation, but I can’t remember from where.  I think it was described as similar to the movie Get Out, which I haven’t seen yet – not big on horror, but I’d like to see that one if I can psych myself up for it.  Anyway, I’m lukewarm on it mostly because the thriller part doesn’t really get going until the last quarter of the book.  It’s an uncomfortable read, in a good way – it’s about the evils of gentrification as some truly racist white people get away with small, medium, and large awful things as they move in.  And if it hadn’t been billed as a thriller, I would probably feel better about it as a story.  The first part was really good (and uncomfortable).

But the male lead being a white guy feels like a sop, like the author was cautioned  that “not all white people are bad”, and while on one hand I appreciate that, on the other hand I think it undermines the point.

Gamechanger by L.X. Beckett

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Started: 11/17/20
Finished: 12/2/20

I almost gave up on this one halfway through.  It starts out really good, in a future after a climate disaster, when everyone has their minimum needs met, money is social capital, and everyone basically lives in the Matrix.  Our main character is trying to help someone who may or may not be a sentient AI, her dad is a conspiracy theorist, she’s a superstar gamer, and there’s a police officer after her client.  Super good, I was super involved.  And then, exactly at the 50% mark, they threw in a curve ball that almost made me throw the book across the room.  (For perspective, the last time I actually threw a book was at the end of The Day After Tomorrow, when they brought out Hitler’s cryogenically frozen head.  This wasn’t THAT bad.)

I kept reading, and I got hooked again fairly quickly so I could forgive the weird plot twist that messed with a perfectly good AI/Matrix book.

I know it’s not clear, but I DID like it, and I DO recommend it.