Not so exciting epiphany regarding my reading taste

I realized what I like about fiction. I like stories of any genre as long as they deal with character growth surrounded by the themes of family and hope. I like stories where it’s love that saves the day and overcomes all the negative of the story. Yeh, sure that sounds sappy, but it is the theme of several famous (some good) fictional pieces: A Wrinkle in Time, Star Wars, I could argue that the Giver and even To Kill a Mockingbird are of this vein. They all feature characters using love to over come evil.

I also like the idea of a character finding redemption after a struggle.

And characters who fight against unfortunate destinies.

Today I read two books in rapid fire succession, which for me is quite a feat, but I enjoyed them wholeheartedly. They’re for my book class, but I am glad to have met them so to speak. I found that both Eleven by Patricia Reilly Giff and Somebody by Nancy Springer did not disappoint. In fact, I was crying by the end and for similar reasons. In both stories the main character is searching for the truth. In Eleven, Sam stumbles upon some papers that make it seem possible he was abducted. For Sherica, she was abducted by her father when she was five. Both seek the truth and the endings are only similar in that the characters find peace with their families.

Neither story dumbs down the mystery surrounding the character’s family, nor does it coat things in overt happy ending goo. The resolutions are fairly similar and straight forward, but also sensitive to the other characters without demonizing their actions. In short, not judgmental or preachy.

I am struggling to get through the mystery Chasing Vermeer which simply is too light hearted for my taste.

My reading today has helped me realize that I don’t have to favor one genre over another, I just need to find books along a certain theme to be truly entertained.

Carrot Salad

Finally I am posing the recipe for the carrot salad Mervi made for the BBQ we had back in August! If you were there, then you know how good it was!

Funny, when we were in NYC we ate at some restaurant near Rockefeller Plaza (for the life of me I can't remember what it was called) and Mervi ordered the carrot sald there. Let me say...Mervi's was just as good if not better than that fancy one!

So try it! (p.s...if you can't handle the metric system, give me a shout and I'll translate for ya)!!!