Keeping it Short & Simple...

I realized that I didn't conclude Salvage The Bones. It ended simply and sweetly and shortly, which is how I'm trying to write this post. Short and simple. It was a good read. I dragged it out a little larger than I would have liked to but I wasn't a bad book. It was an on-and-off kind of book. Some parts were interesting and moved fast, others were slow and dragged on. In the end Esch and her family are on a life threatening adventure. Their house floods to the ceiling and they have to escape from to the roof through the attic. They some how have to jump from roof to roof with glass and wind and debris whipping them around. They carry their dog China and her puppies but ultimately the puppies are lost and when they finally get to safety, China leaves in the storm to find her puppy. Esch's brother Skeetah who is China's true owner goes after her.

The storm dies and the family observe the aftermath. That's pretty much how the book ends. They find Skeetah at their house which is now  ruined. China is still lost but he has hope. I guess the book is about hope.
Oh yeah, while they're fighting for their lives, they find out Esch is pregnant. The father at first is stunned and almost seems angry. But after the storm he shows he cares more about Esch and her brothers and will take care of her. It's an a'ight book. I like open-minded things.
I am continuing COUNTING SEVENS. I want to read Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. Be part of the controversy.

Counting by SEVENS..

Unable to make a choice on my next quick read by myself, I've resorted to recommendations. So here's basically a quick summary of what I've read so far. It's so far about an ambiguously racial genius who has to attend counseling for being so misunderstood. Tragedy strikes  very early in the book and right now my character, Willow Chance, is dealing with it.
Counting by 7s, by Holly Goldberg Sloan seems like a mid-sized book, but is actually a easy read. Me, a very slow reader, is moving through it pretty fast. It has a fairly small amount of words on a page. Sloan clearly is going for a more of an artistic approach in her writing. She often changes perspective, ignores chronological order, and has a poetic-like way of speaking through her characters. It almost feels like sort of overly forced artistry, but I sometimes use the same techniques when I write, and I try to avoid hypocrisy. It's an easy read, but characters sometimes annoy me as usual. Especially Willow's so-called counselor, Dell Duke.
SPOILER ALERT: the tragedy is that Willow's parents die in a car crash after finding out the mother has cancer. They were returning from the hospital when a emergency vehicle & their car collided. The IRONY. It's painful.
Anyway.one thing that always bothered me in stories is that authors can't seem to reach or describe the deepest and realest and painful-est emotions. Like who can put into words what it feels like to lose a loved one?Cliche phrases used are, "My world came crashing down". We have to use metaphors and similes and hyperboles to describe the rawest parts of the human experience. Some things are too real to be recorded maybe.
As an observer of the human society I have realized that people are of afraid of real life. The moment real life enters television or books or music, it has to be censored. We have to protect the children from real life. Maybe books are supposed to be cheery and easy escapes from a dark and evil world. But I don't want to use books as an escape. I want the dark and evil and real stuff from the world personified and made easier to understand. I want to learn from the evil to understand human nature and see things the way they're supposed to be seen. Well it's easy for me to say cause I've never really been censored. I remember my favorite childhood author was Judy Blume. I read through all her books from Fudge to Iggie's House and even Are You There God, It's me Margret. I read all her kid books by the time I hit fourth grade. Then one day I discovered something called the YA section and Judy Blume had books there... Let's just say things went over my head. One thing about kids who have parents that make them read a lot is that you plow through books pretty fast. And soon all the young popular books get old and go exploring into different sections of the library. I taught myself a lot of things growing up.
But that's because the books I read were about real life. I can now look back on them and understand what they meant.