finally giving in

Well, the World Cup started yesterday. Which means that my soccer widowhood has started. Luckily, your many helpful suggestions made my plight much easier to deal with and Operation World Cup Survival is off to a...well, magical...start.

World Cup: Night 1

It seems I've run out of excuses. After seventeen years of not getting around to reading Harry Potter...I'm getting around to it.

It should keep me plenty busy for the next month. And I know I'm missing two books here. Don't worry, I'll find them and read it all in order.

My friends Catherine and Mollyanne have been relentlessly pestering encouraging me to read the books for years now. They even plot schemes about how to get me to read them. So when I finally picked up the books and committed to giving them a try, I had to send them this picture. I'm guessing they're busy patting themselves on the back and high fiving for another convert or something.

So far I am 125 pages in and so far, so good! I stayed up later than I'd planned because I got sucked in, so I guess that's a good sign.

In other reading news, I finally finished Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I'd listened to about 70% of it on the audiobook on road trips, but finally had to return the CDs and I just borrowed the book from the library to finish the story. Then I ended up starting back at the beginning of the book because I think I fell asleep a few times during the audiobook, so I wanted to be sure I got the whole story.

Here's the thing. If I hadn't started with the audiobook (and had just picked up the book as a BOOK or ebook)...I'm pretty sure I never would have finished. The author took some serious liberties with the writing/style/format of the book. L.I.B.E.R.T.I.E.S. It started out by feeling a little different, a little intriguing...and quickly devolved to being obnoxious and overkill. Weird for the sake of being weird. I liked the story enough (well, Oskar's story. The grandma/grandpa parallel story didn't do anything for me) to stick with it, hoping there would be a good payoff at the end. But really...there wasn't. I don't know. It just ended. One of those where you flip back and forth a few times, sure you missed a concluding chapter or epilogue or something...but no, it's just...done. Well, okay then.

So I'd give it maybe 3 stars. Or 2.5. But I also think that like 80% of people would be too annoyed by the weirdness of the written version to get more than a few chapters in.

Although I'm looking forward to blazing through the HP over the next month(s?) or so, I'm going to have to pause whenever my book for book club this month comes in. We're reading The Program and I'm looking forward to it...but as per usual, the library is taking its sweet time getting it to me. 

And that's about all. I finally beat Challenge 25 on 2048. I was stuck on it for like three days, so it was a triumphant moment. At my current trajectory, with each challenge taking longer and longer to beat...this could take me the rest of the year. But I'll press on because I am not a quitter, and I'm also not dumber than a phone game. So between my reading schedule and my 2048 schedule...whew, this is one busy summer! ;)

Have a great weekend!!