First Finish of the Week

So I had a lot of down time at work Tuesday.  Like... a lot for the first half of the day, because I was fighting with the homework computers down in the children's department, which meant I was either waiting for something to install/restart/update, or later on the phone with a technician trying to figure out why this software wasn't installing on one specific computer.  Which meant that, while maybe not the most professional use of my time, I did get some reading done.

I hesitate to say that simply because, well.  I don't get to read just because I work in a library.  That is very frowned upon, and it's not like there's time in the day anyway.  It's actually become sort of a default preface for librarians when people talk about or ask us about our jobs - no, we don't get to read all day, yep it's great to be around all those books!  (Which is very true and very much not at the same time, because some people are not the most careful with library books.  Don't love being around the books that come back smelling strongly of smoke.)  So much so, in fact, that's it's coming back around the other side with some librarians afraid to even talk about their love of books and reading, and others outspoken about loving books and having that be a reason they became a librarian.  Which is a long way to say that no, we don't read all day because it's a job and we're working, but yeah, a lot of us in the public sector probably wanted to work in libraries because we love books so much.

But!  All of that to say!  I had a special case today when I had to be in front of the computer but there was nothing to do other than wait, so I did get to read a little.  I also have to take two breaks every day because I'm still breast feeding and I have to pump, so I read then, too.  (Have to do something to take my mind off what I am subjecting myself to.  For the love of my child, but still!  It ain't fun.)  So why is this relevant?

Because I finished Turtles All the Way Down!

I actually went and ate lunch in my car so I could listen to my audiobook (on a disc, in my CD player, I'm very hip to the times) but I wound up being unable to stop thinking about Turtles so I read a good chunk of it, and then managed to finish the last bit of it on my last break.

I chose this for my "orange" challenge, mostly because I was a bit desperate for something orange (yeah, yeah, The Martian, but I needed a full seven books for my TBR, okay?), I had had it in the back of my mind for awhile that I wanted to read it, and it was available to check out as an e-book through the library.  (I might not get to read at work, but I take every advantage of finding books to read later, that's for sure.)  It was a quick read, and pretty enjoyable.  I definitely didn't love it.  It was the kind of book that even while I only kind of liked it, it did stick with me.  I found it to be a vivid, compelling portrait of a young woman struggling with anxiety and intrusive, spiralling thoughts, but I was disappointed by it and would rate it 3 out of 5 stars.

The plot was nonexistent other than a very forced side story about a missing billionaire.  Which is how the whole thing starts and it's what brings the characters together (the main character Aza and the love interest, Davis), but it goes nowhere and feels almost pointless.  And I hate to say this - I mean I genuinely feel kind of guilty saying this - but it just... wasn't a good story because of Aza.  If it had just been a long, introspective ramble about her, and what she was going through, without any additional trappings I think I would have liked it more, but because there was the frame of a story there I started looking for a story to be told, for the parts of a story, and they weren't really there.  Aza didn't have motivation to do anything, really, and she didn't really experience a lot of character growth¹.  That in and of itself isn't bad, obviously, and it's not even that it's something I wouldn't want to read.  The problem is the plot isn't strong enough to combine with the whole introspective ramblings on consciousness - it feels almost like an after thought.

One thing I did like - that the negative reviews on goodreads were pretty vocally against - was Davis and his astronomy and his poetry and all the quotations.  Look.  Just look, everybody.  Is it pretentious?  Are the teens over articulate?  (Frequent complaints I see lobbied against, like.  Every John Green book, to be honest.)  A better question is: does that matter?  The people I see complaining about that are adults - and the books aren't written for you (or me, I know).  They're for teens, and - just using an example pulled out of the blue here - teen me?  Sensitive, shy, nose-always-in-a-book me?  Who thought she wasn't smart enough for poetry, who doubted herself, who wasn't sure when it was okay to like "adult" things like Shakespeare and Keats beyond the context of school, who wasn't sure if she had the life experience to understand those lovely words and wasn't sure she ever would?  I would have loved it, I imagine.  I mean, I think it's okay to romanticize teen dialog of all things, I'm sure there are lots of young people who eat this up.  Because it is lovely in a lot of places, even if it isn't realistic.  So ends my daily "get off my lawn" rant.  It is pretentious, sure, but I honestly don't mind.

So meh.  My overall impression was: it was okay.  I liked it.

¹Okay you could probably fight me on this one because of that confrontation with Daisy, but still.  That is incidental to the larger plot, really.