Friday, January 29, 2016

My New Favorite Book

I'm a shitty blogger. I never write blogs just like I never Tweet or Facebook, but every now and then something will catch my attention in which I feel I have to share something, even if nobody reads it. It's about a book, and no, not mine. I do read on occasion, and after chipping my library fee away enough to where I could actually rent books again, I've been reading even more.

I don't know if it's gone out of style yet, but I still do the thing of picking random books off the shelf in search of new authors. I did this with three books, all generic covers and names. I only liked one. In fact I loved it. When I read it I didn't want to read anything else. It's called Annie's Song by Catherine Anderson. I'd never heard of Catherine Anderson before, but if she ever reads this I want her to know she has a new fangirl.

First off, the book is copyrighted 1996, so it's not new. The book is set in 1890 Hooperville Oregon, so it's hardly contemporary either. Despite what I write I generally don't read any book set before the 1900's, so this was right up my alley. In short, the book is about a man who takes in a sweet "idiot" girl whom his younger brother raped, marries her, and forms a deep attachment to her.

This book had so much substance it made me question just what the hell I'd been reading over the past two years. It isn't very often I read something where the two leads genuinely connect. Writing sparks-flying-off-the-page chemistry is freaking hard, even harder to come across, and when I do it makes me cry. This book made me cry. There was nothing exploitative in the dialogue or the sex, and that was GREATLY appreciated. I am not an idiot reader and I demand more from my books than even I realize. This gave it to me, and then some.

If you want to read something in which two souls connect, try Annie's Song. Make sure you have a box of tissues next to you when you read it.