Dear book club friends: stop me now. Seriously. It's four days into my summer vacation and I need some light beachy reads or I may never be able to relax. I went from Wild to this, the story of two high school buddies from the late 1970's in Seattle who backpack together and talk exisentialism and Gnosticism. It's too much.
So now that you know how I really feel...this is actually a good book. I truly dislike very few books. I think I appreciate the work that an author put into them, and I like words that are put together well, and I just like to read. Period. It's hard for me to completely pan any book. David Guterson also wrote Snow Falling on Cedars, which is amazing, and East of the Mountains, which is fun to read (even though it's kind of dark in tone) because it's set in my home town of Wenatchee and the surrounding area. I like Guterson's style of rich but real description and deep characterization and his slow burning plots. But I think for me, this one came too close on the heels of another hiking book and too close to Crossing to Safety which shares this book's deep introspections on growing up and classism and loyalty and the nature of knowing others.
The bad news is I already started The Paris Wife, about Ernest Hemingway's first wife, so that doesn't promise to be much lighter. The good news is I have learned my lesson and will be ordering some Jennifer Weiner and young adult fiction books from the library pronto. I hope your summer reading is looking promising! Let me know if you have any great light reads to recommend.
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