I Blame Wally Lamb

Reading a book a month was one of my 2014 goals. (Which I now realize I haven't even posted about yet, and at this point probably won't.) I didn't used to need to make reading one of my goals, but I guess that's life.

Anyway, my tablet recently took a nosedive. Yeah, yeah, paperback books, blah, blah, blah. But I like my tablet. It probably wouldn't hurt my baby as much when I drop that on her as the big ass books I read could. (I dropped a hardback copy of Breaking Dawn on my own head once and nearly saw stars).

Luckily (but unluckily for Piper), for Christmas I had asked for a paperback copy of We Are Water by Wally Lamb. I love (love, love, love) his writing. The way he writes from the inside of female characters minds is nothing short of astounding. If only my own husband understood the inner-workings of women's minds so clearly. I'm not very imaginative, but always get clear, vivid pictures from his prose. I love the way characters from some books come back in others, just for little cameos. I get a little jittery inside, like I know a secret only a few others know, when I see old characters show up in new books. I feel like he does it as a shout out to his most loyal fans.

And I'm one of them.

I've read all his work. Even one of those lame prison essay compilations he put together while teaching workshops at a correctional institute. Wally, if you're reading this, sorry about calling them lame.

So as I said, for Christmas this year I asked for a hard copy of his latest book because I like to have hard copies of all of his books. I usually only buy the hard copy after reading the e-book and falling in love. Hmmph, I say usually like I actually do it regularly, but I don't. I'm rarely that "spoken to." Fortunately, I can know I'll be spoken to in advance by Lamb's book, so I just go ahead and buy them in hard copy and try not to concuss whatever child/pet is in my lap while reading.

But the man can't write a book that's less than 900 pages. (Except for once) And that's kind of a commitment for the girl with two kids and no real time on her hands to use for reading.

So here I am, on page 300 of We Are Water, which is only 1/3 of the way through and I have today to read the other 600 pages. Not. Happening.

As such, I've broken my first goal for the year in the first month of the year.

Obviously, this is Wally's fault. Ya know, and not mine, for choosing to watch 2 seasons of the Pioneer Woman when I realized Food Network was on Amazon Prime. (Why is food TV so damn soothing?!)

Maybe his latest offering can count for 2 months since it's larger than the average novel? I hope so. I'd hate to be a failure so early in the year. If I'm not done by the end of February though, I'll have no one to blame but myself. ;)

Also, I promise I'm not a stalker.