Published : 2021 || Format : print || Location : Colombia ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ What was it about the country that kept everyone hostage to its fantasy? The previous month, on its own soil, an American man went to his job at a plant and gunned down fourteen coworkers, and last spring alone there were four different school shootings. A nation at war with itself, yet people still spoke of it as some kind of paradise.. Thoughts : Infinite Country follows two characters - young Talia, who at the beginning of this book, escapes a girl’s reform school in North Colombia so that she can make her previously booked flight to the US. Before she can do that, she needs to travel many miles to reach her father and get her ticket to the rest of her family. As we follow Talia’s treacherous journey south, we learn about how she ended up in the reform school in the first place and why half her family resides in the US. Infinite Country tells the story of her family through the other protagonist, El
Are we excited that the worst year in decades is finally ending? I've never much cared for marking years that way as dates are just arbitrary but this time around, I want nothing to do with this year. Good riddance, that's all I'll say. Not that I expect 2021 may be extraordinary, but there's some hope that Covid-19 vaccines will be available and we can resume more social activities.
The Elections
I don't talk about this much - politics is enough of a divisive subject across the country but I'm glad we are close to the end. I'm both relieved and terrified to find out what the outlook of the next four years will look like. But at least it will be done and YouTube can stop interrupting my watching experience to show election ads (which is weirdly always of the other party).
Scheduled
I hate making calls to schedule medical appointments, so I sat down one afternoon and forced myself to call place after place to get flu shots, medical appointments, eye appointments scheduled. At least they are all due at around the same time, so I only need to deal with this once a year. Now to make those trips - already something of dread under normal circumstances, but much harder during winter and this pandemic year.
Reading
Last week, I finished In Five Years, which actually turned out to be a lot more entertaining than I expected. I won't say that the ending actually made sense, especially if the book had not started with a premonition. But it kept me turning pages, didn't rile me up, and sometimes that's good enough.
Looking forward to Nonfiction November, I also started reading Just Mercy, which has been on top of my TBR for a long time. I'm not too far in but I can already see that I'm going to love the writing and will be hooked.
Mindy Kaling's new essay collection
It feels like I mention Mindy Kaling over here every week for some reason or the other. And I'm not even her biggest fan. I haven't watched The Office or The Mindy Project but I just love her. Last week, I somehow came across these six free short essay collections (well, free to borrow on Amazon Prime) - Nothing Like I Imagined - and I had to get them. I've been reading a book a day and love them so far. Each book is only about 36 pages long - there are 2-4 essays in each and deal with various topics, like religion, social anxiety, parenting, about love, privilege, and many others.
If you haven't found these, go check them out, maybe you'll be able to get them for free as well.
Watching
Still continuing with The Next Generation. We now have a new Trekkie in the family! My five-year old daughter is watching the show with us and following the adventures of Picard, Data, Riker, Troi, Crusher and others. And then, she stages these make-believe starship battles where we are all trying to save the ship and make intelligent battle strategies. LOL! If she had joined the fandom sooner, we would be doing a Star Trek costume for Halloween. Maybe next year.
Since I've been waiting for holiday movies for a while (says something about what this year has been like), I watched The Holidate on Netflix. It did its job as decent eye candy but otherwise the movie was meh. We also finished the five Ice Age movies that we've been watching during Friday movie nights, so the girl is somewhat sad to say bye and I'm scrambling again for movies that are fun, kid-friendly, with little to no dark or tragic scenes (the latter is what makes it hard).
On the blog
I've been running super lazy on this, but I spent a good chunk of each day last week catching up on review posts. I still have a few more to go but it feels good to have some done.
If you're in the U.S., did you change your clocks (i.e., if you are not in one of two states that decided this custom is ridiculous)?
Linking with The Sunday Salon at Readerbuzz and The Sunday Post at Caffeinated Reviewer.
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