Yesterday I realized that reading short things on the Kindle app on my phone is an excellent way to pass the time when waiting for a concert to start if I’m at a show by myself and don’t have actual book I’m reading with me (because it’s a hardcover and there’s no way that thing is going to fit in my little going-to-a-concert bag, and it would be annoyingly heavy even if it did fit).
Yesterday’s short reads were:
1) I Choose Darkness by Jenny Lawson: This short personal essay would probably have been better to read at Halloween but it was enjoyable nevertheless. Lawson is a little bit older than me and grew up in a very different place, so reading about her childhood Halloween experiences was fun for me in a “well that’s different” way rather than a “whoa, nostalgia” way. The part where she writes about how her mom would have her and her sister run laps around their house and ring the doorbell multiple times for their own version of trick-or-treating (because they were out in the sticks/didn’t have neighbors close by) was probably my favorite thing about this.
2) The Answer Is No by Fredrik Backman: This was a cute novella, and the shorter length helps keep it from being too saccharine for me. The protagonist of this one is Lucas, who is perfectly happy with his solitary existence and isn’t planning on letting anything interrupt it. But of course, things don’t always go as planned. Recommended if you’re sometimes a little misanthropic but not really, or if you live in a coop and want a funny story that partly involves coop boards, or if you like pad thai, or if you just want a quick feel-good read. Best moment of humor for me (like: I screenshotted it and sent it to my husband because I liked it so much) was when one character says, “I usually keep my peanuts next to a jar of peanut butter, so they understand what I’m capable of.”
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