N is for ...

... novel.

Whatcha reading lovebugs?  Anything good?  Anything juicy?  Anything recommendable?

Me?  I'm reading something very, very good.  Not necessarily juicy.  I am pretty sure it's not  recommendable in an enjoyable read kind of way. 

You see, The Fault in Our Stars, written by John Green, is the story of a sixteen-year-old cancer patient named Hazel, who is forced by her parents to attend a support group, where she subsequently meets and falls in love with the seventeen-year-old Augustus Waters, an ex-basketball player and amputee.

With respect, this is no Harlequin romance.

The book came to me highly recommended with requisite disclaimers - it's not easy, but it's worth it; you will cry but you'll be fine - from someone whose on my same book train.  That said, I didn't love The Night Circus (I'm sorry, E!  I just wanted it to end!) but we can't hold this one flub against her.   In truth, if E could stand the emotional weight of The Fault in Our Stars, I could too dammit! so here we are 150 pages in and I'm scared to go on.

I don't want to know how this story is going to play out because I'm thinking it's not good.  Right now, I'm at a sweet spot.  These kids are getting to know each other and they're so adorable in their insecurities and mutual crushing.  They're doing all the cute things you do, regardless of how old you are, when you meet someone you like but are sort of scared to admit you like them.  I want to freeze them right there forever.  Hazel is far more pragmatic than I am - she knows this can't last.  She's in tune to her own reality and is pushing Augustus away.  NO!  What are you doing you dumbdumb!?  He really likes you!! 

Adding to my reluctance in dealing with fictional realities, is the fact that I know this book is going to be a Stage 5 Weeper.  I've already gotten a little misty.  I have no issue with that at all (quite honestly, at this moment, I'd much rather cry over some fake people's love lives than my own pathetic one thank you very much), but as I do most of my reading on the subway these days I'm not looking forward to wailing on the TTC.  While I try to balance.  And not miss my stop. (Confession:  I am the nerdy girl who reads library books on the subway - look, I pay taxes and want to get something tangible out of them! - and missed her stop a few times while reading and also reads while walking on occasion.  Please don't point and laugh if you ever see me.)  It's sort of embarrassing.  But.  You need to ride your shit out (Literally and Figuratively!) so I suppose I will cross that bridge when I come to it.  You have been warned.

So that takes us back to the actual matter at hand.  What will happen to Hazel & Augustus?  I DON'T KNOW!  I DON'T WANT TO KNOW!  TELL ME!  I mean, did we know what was going to happen to Dexter & Emma?!  (Oh my God, I can't even.)  Or Henry & Clare?  Or Anyone & Anyone?  I mean, really? Do you know what's going to happen to you?!  How can we know unless we come to know?  We need to go through it to live it and learn it.  We need to see how it all plays out.  That, lovebugs, is straight from my own personal handbook of Life Skills 202. 

I came about my Life Skills Handbook completely accidentally, after someone told me something that was just so doomsday:  "I fear the end before the beginning."  I'm not going to go into the details of how this came about, suffice to say it wasn't pleasant and in the end, after some really good and some really bad he was completely right to fear the end because the end sucked large.  Unfortunately, we didn't really have much of a middle, which made the end - in my mind anyway - even worse.  It was all for nothing.  I thought, then, and reaffirm now, that fearing the end before the beginning is actually an anti-life skill because where's the actual living?  It's a massive holding pattern where you wait for someone to cajole or talk you into something while you resist and think.  You are stuck.  It is very hard being that other person.  Resisting the urge to scream "Just fucking go for it!"  Let's see how it plays out! We are not working off a script!"  all the time.  And that's when you're not walking on the eggshells of saying and doing something that may be construed as the wrong thing.  Spoiler alert:  I am not an eggshell type of person.  Enter Life Skills 202, where We See How Things Play Out. In case you are wondering, there are only two levels in my Life Skills Handbook.  Life Skills 101 is where you learn things like putting your pants on before your shoes.  It's a work in progress.

So, here I am.  At an impasse with The Fault in Our Stars because I don't want to see how things are going to play out.  I am failing at my own handbook with fake people.  Dear Lord.  Get a grip, Olga, you little wimp.  You're tougher than this.  You're better than this.  ALL THIS.  AND THAT.  Even amidst periods of monumental self - doubt and insecurity you know you were better than that (I only know this thanks to my boo).  I'm trudging forward.  And honest to God, Hazel better trudge too.  We need to see  how it all plays out - for Hazel & Augustus & Olga.  It's not really a novel idea, lovebugs, it's just a life skill.  ;)

N is for Novel.