Yeah, you do not want me to blather on about html or the weather. (Warm and very rainy today with freezing rain and gawd only knows what else in the week’s forecast. Yer belcome.)

I entered a reading challenge on GoodReads this year. The beach urchins shamed me into it. Oh, not really but they were doing challenges and I copied them. My challenge is 52 books. I have read seven so far. We’ll see what I get up to. A few books at random below.

In the people who kind of want to be “normal” but don’t feel like they fit in but tend to do whatever the heck they want *anyway* category? “Blue Boy”. Indian/American junior high boy. Highly talented, mercilessly teased by peers, chafing at parental attempts to force him to follow their cultural norms. In the United Snakes of America? Really? Good book. Blue is the color.

In the people who know they aren’t normal (no quotes) and don’t really care but try to fit in anyway category? “Convenience Store Woman”. It’s Japanese (because there is more than one book with that title). I won’t say anything more about this except that I enjoyed it and am glad neither of my children turned out like this woman. And that’s *not* because she works in a convenience store and not at a “real job” whatever the heck that is. I’m still trying to figger it out.

In the people who *are* normal but can’t get a break category? “Winter’s Bone”. Dirt poor teenage girl struggles to hold dysfunctional family together in the middle of the winter in the Ozarks. Oh my. I grew up in the yooperland knowing good but dirt poor people with dysfunctional families and I love books like this. Other books in this category (which I read a while ago) are “Marlena” and “Sweet Girl”, both set in the Northern Lower.

In the everybody’s crazy in different ways all over the map category? “Bellweather Rhapsody”. State wide high school music festival for the most talented kids in the state. Haunted hotel. Disappeared student. A Mommy Dearest to beat all. What can I say? I enjoyed the book but struggle with how some loose ends were tied up at the end but not others. At least I couldn’t figure them out.

I read the last book in part because it kind of reminded me of when I was in high school and made it in to the Interlochen All-State camp a couple summers. The book had elements that matched my experience. Little “romances” blossoming on Melody Lane (or whatever it was called). Mean girl crapola that I DID NOT PARTICIPATE IN!!!! Thank you very much. More on that some other day? Maybe…

Oh, and then there’s “The Monsters of Templeton”, which isn’t quiiiite in any of these categories but features a fictional version of Cooperstown, NY, complete with a lochness-style monster. The book is by one of my favorite contemporary authors, Lauren Groff. If you are thinking it’s about baseball, you may be disappointed.

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