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Infinite Country by Patricia Engel | Thoughts

   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...

Finally some books | Weekly Snapshot

Wow, I've been in a blogging blackout for quite a bit. Honestly, it feels extremely unmooring being out of it for this long. The good news is, I have a few posts planned out and am hoping to spend some time today and tomorrow trying to get caught up. At least that's the plan, we'll see what tries to come in the way of that.



Renovation updates

Not a whole lot to report here. The work in the kitchen had to be paused while we wait for new island cabinets and granite to come along. I am hoping for some progress on the granite this week - if that happens, we will be able to start using everything except the island and that will be a huge win for me. At this point, I am trying to get the house as ready as it can be before my parents travel from India. It will be extremely tight. 

Most of the recent work has been in the master bathroom. It's coming along nicely, albeit a little slower than we hoped. 


Life

We were expecting to have visitors over the Thanksgiving week as our renovations were expected to be done by then. So instead, we are visiting my husband's brother in Boston. We are planning to drive (about 13 hour drive), and maybe stop along the way. We'll see. A lot is going to depend on whether we can leave Friday evening. I just hope we don't run into a blizzard - that happened the last time we drove to Boston and it was treacherous being on the road. (For some reason, we seem to be visiting Boston more often in winter.)

I have several hours of PTO to use up at work so I decided to take next week off. The break is very much needed. 


Reading

Finally, I am reading more! It feels great to be out of a rut. I've finished Passing by Nella Larsen last week. It's one of a few books that I just couldn't rate immediately. I felt like there was a whole subtext that I missed and may have to read again to pick it. It was certainly a good read - it's a slim book and on the surface, it is about Irene reconnecting with an old friend, Clare, and how this changes the trajectory of both their lives, but underneath it all, there are a lot of subtle elements - race and how it has both empowered and discriminated against blacks, Irene's almost-erotic fascination with Clare conflicting with her extreme sense of propriety and morality, the impact of depression in a family, and running away from the very thing you yearn for in your life. I know I'm going to keep peeling this onion for a while. Right after I finished reading the book, I also watched the movie (just released last week on Netflix). Right away, I could tell that the director stayed extremely faithful to the book. A lot of the scenes and dialogues are 1-to-1 between the book and the movie. There are some differences of course and I felt they help showcase some of the aspects of the story that were left to assumption in the book. With all that said, I don't know if the movie is worth a watch - it helped clarify several points from the book for me but for someone who didn't read the book, it may not be their cup of tea. Besides, you really need to get to the ending (of either the book or the movie) to truly get the "point" of the story. Until then, one may be wondering where this is going. 

If you read the book or watched the movie, what did you think?




On Friday night, I was looking for a couple of quick reads, so I binged on two graphic "scribble" nonfiction - Sarah Andersen's Big Mushy Happy Lump and Christopher Grady's Lunarbaboon.

Big Mushy Happy Lump by Sarah Andersen: I loved this author's Adulthood is a Myth so I was eager to read this one. I completely missed all the books she had released over the past few years, plus she has a new one coming this month. As with her first one, she has several pictures that book lovers and introverts will especially love. She does talk a lot about her tendency to overthink her decisions and overanalyze her actions, thus keeping her in an endless cycle of being unable to make friends sometimes. Overall, this is a wonderful scribble collection and I had several moments of "aha that's me!"

Lunarbaboon by Christopher Grady: As soon as I finished Big Mushy Happy Lump, this book came up in my recommendations. Who doesn't enjoy reading a humorous take on parenting. Lunarbaboon is a collection of the author's experiences as a father. There are several pictures here that many parents will connect with. If you are looking for a quick fun read about misadventures in parenting, then this book may be for you.

Currently I am reading the third book in the Murderbot series - Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells. I stumbled upon a free copy at Overdrive and also in my library, which is extremely unusual so I'm reading between the print and the ebook versions.


Watching

We are continuing to watch Star Trek: Prodigy and loving it so far! I also watched Passing (see note above).

This weekend, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings finally arrived on Disney Plus. I've been waiting for it forever. We finally watched it last night and loved it! It's certainly one of Marvel's better movies - all the visuals and character development was great. And of course, you can never go wrong with Awkwafina - I will watch anything she is in and completely enjoy it.


On the Blog


Have the 2022 planning and challenge list started? Please spam me with whatever you got.


Linking with The Sunday Salon at Readerbuzz and The Sunday Post at Caffeinated Reviewer


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