Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

That’s what this week is going to be, folks. This morning my son had the eye doctor, my older girls have the dentist after school, and the middles have piano at 4; tomorrow I have PTA and then my youngest has therapy, while the older girls have dance in the evening; Wednesday I have the temple and then we have a PTA sponsored event in the evening that I’m going to be prepping for and then attending with the kiddos; Thursday my oldest has a med check and my son has a ‘his meds aren’t working well’ appointment, plus it’s that oldest’s birthday, my youngest has dance, and we have tithing settlement; and Friday the littles and I have the dentist, my oldest TAs at dance, and my youngest has piano.

I really can’t wait for this week to be over.

On the other hand, I finished The Runaway’s Diary last night, and I’m thrilled to be reviewing it because I’m sending it straight back to the library without anyone else reading it–OR any other books by James Patterson coming in. I think I’ve already mentioned that I don’t find James Patterson impressive enough to need to go through all of his books–is that even possible now that he does all the collaborating?–which is why I’m not replacing this book with another on my daughter’s library card. I’m not passing it on to any of my kiddos, however, because I don’t think any of them need to read it. Being a YGN, it’s most definitely too old for my youngest; it actually feels a little old for my 14-year-old as well. She’d read it, certainly, but I don’t feel like a book about a runaway 15-year-old looking for her sister NEEDS to be a part of her worrywart life right now, and I think the twist might annoy her. (It kind of annoyed me.) My oldest is too busy for me to pass on books to her that I’m not passionate about–unless, of course, I truly believe SHE’LL be passionate about it, but that isn’t the case here. (I didn’t really consider my son–he’s too young as well, but he also isn’t passionate about graphic novels.)

As for me? I appreciated the art (shoutout to Valeria Wicker), and the story kept me reading, but I felt the book tried to be two different things at once, and I don’t think it was as successful at either as I would have liked it to be. And I’m honestly not sure who to recommend it to–the attempted duality made the age and stage of the target audience contradictory. Ultimately, I guess I’m saying ‘eh’ to everything but the art. If you read it and felt differently, though, feel free to let me know!