Review: The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I’m sorry. I know this is beloved by so many people. For me, it was weeks of reading time I will never get back again.

Could it be due to listening to it on Audible? Maybe. I do know that I rarely knew whose point of view that was being presented. I didn’t even realize there were four daughters, not three, until the end of the book. I do wish that audio narrators would give us more flags of POV change.

I was raised reading missionary stories. My grandmother had a bookshelf of these stories. I loved reading about the missionaries going to foreign countries or continents. Of course, the issues of how women were treated were not in the books for my middle-grade group reads. Later I noticed how PKs and preacher’s wives were treated. Some with great respect, others with disdain, and worse. It makes me sick to know how the father treated the main characters in this book. And equally badly how the natives were treated. Nothing new there. When will humans learn to treat others with respect even when they don’t look or worship as we do?

I’m sure there are those who love this book. Maybe it was where I was mentally when I read (listened to) this book. I don’t want to ruin it for you. Enjoy.

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Happy Polar Bear Day

Fresh from Facebook

Bad Internet

Hopefully this much will get through.

Finishing Friday

I wish I were farther along than I am. But I’ll take what progress I can.

One finished two-toned sock done. The mate is nearly finished, too. Yay! Oh, these are cotton. The loom is the Flexee fine-gauge loom. Kitchener Cast-on toe. German short-row heel. Two-by-two ribbing cuff. The cast-off is a crochet type. I’m not so happy with only one chain between loomed stitches. I needed more stretch for this pair of socks.

Same cotton but a different pair. Knitting on ChiaoGoo red-lace circular needles. These are Toe-up Two At A Time Socks. Now I need to learn how to do wrap-and-turn heel. I now have three pairs waiting for my brain to catch up.

These, too, are cotton. A far finger thread. The needles are thin, I think size 1? Again, these are ChiaoGoo red-lace circular needles. I expect these to take twice as long as the thicker cotton socks. At least they are starting to be more like socks and less like bras.

I’m going to post this as a place holder. Our internet isn’t working. It is even spotty on my phone. Hitting publish now.

Edit: All I got into this post last night was the paragraph just above. The pictures came through only just this morning. Now I’ll label them.

My Stream of Consciousness Saturday may have to happen on Sunday.

There is no one in the office of our internet company to help during the weekend.😒

Thus Thursday

My friend suggested Tirade Thursday, but it isn’t as alliterate as I would choose. And we didn’t spend the day complaining, just a bit of it! Her with too much snow, me with not enough. Both with too much wind to enjoy being outside on walks. For some reason, it is always too cold and windy here. The snow clouds surround our area but just spit in passing. We are still fighting the drought conditions. And complaining takes a lot of energy!

Oh, I still don’t have a working treadmill. The company has been notified. I miss it. I never got the runner/walker high, but I had developed a bit of a habit, and now I find that half hour a waste.

At least today, I got something done. My husband sat in his recliner writing. Okay, okay! So I pulled out my memoir and started the editing process. So, my cousins who have been waiting for this for over a year, there is a bit of a promise here. And as I edit, more story comes to mind that I forgot in the first writing. I added 123 words. That brings the total to 65,870. I’m so happy to be married to a writer!

I have finally caught up on The Walking Dead franchise: TWD, Fear of the Walking Dead, and TWD Beyond. Finished. Now I’m ready for the next shows to drop. I loved seeing how they intertwined in the end.

Does anyone else take the list of recorded shows as seriously as any other task list? I do. What I watch are stories written by others, with music I want to hear, with actors and directors doing their best to portray what the writer tried to convey. I like all those aspects. I actively watch or listen while knitting, drawing, writing, or reading. But because of the way I watch, I must often watch something many times to catch all the nuances. Yes, actively means I’m active doing stuff while watching.

We finished watching Eureka on Freevee.

It was as fun as the first time we watched it. FreeVee, I think, is where we watched it.

We also watched Warehouse 13

Another we loved revisiting on FreeVee

And we just finished Scorpion

All three above were for my husband and me to binge on date weekends. ❤

What have you been watching?

One-Liner Wednesday

Found on Facebook

Yep.

One-Liner Wednesday courtesy of Linda G. Hill.

Tutes Tuesday

Nope, not a knitting tutorial this time. My last couple of days have mostly been about The Last of Us. My son didn’t want me to watch the series before trying out the game.

I don’t play games above the level of solitaire and such. Maybe some hidden object games. But role-playing seems a bit too hard. Long ago, my kids had me play a Mario game, and I enjoyed watching the poor plumber jump. I didn’t get past that for laughing and making him jump more. The game was taken from me as the offspring said more needed to be done.

Well, yesterday, my son brought out his Playstation 3 for me to learn about The Last of Us game. The game is about a serious situation. I felt horrid hurting the actors. So I gave the controller back to my son. It had been so long since he played on this system; he usually plays on an Xbox. So he was having trouble getting the main guy, Joel, to climb up and join Tess. (I think that was her name.) I suggested pushing certain buttons, and it worked! Yay!

The story grabbed me right away, and I wanted to stop the game and see more of the story. Here is what we found. Cut out a couple days to watch these.

Then we watched the next one over yesterday and today.

I loved these and can’t wait to see the series.

While Dana had out the Playstation, he wanted me to try one of his favorite games, Skyrim. He thought I would do well with a few short trailers to understand the world and game. I won’t post all of them here. I wasn’t as impressed as I; I’m sorry, everyone, I don’t much like Lord of the Rings and High Fantasy. That is how it appears to me. But he has been telling me about this lady for a long time. Grandma Skyrim, Shirley Currey. She is my newest idol!

https://www.youtube.com/@ShirleyCurryTheOlderGamer

Here is the first one we watched, but I will go to her beginning and watch many of these. I like how she works with the vlog.

Oh, and the knitter in me can’t give up the idea that I hope somewhere she knits and knitted that cool sweater! She is SO cool!

Mime Monday

Found on Facebook.

Review: Late Bloomers by Deepa Varadarajan

Late Bloomers by Deepa Varadarajan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Thank you, Netgalley, for letting me read this book.

Sadly, I nearly quit reading at the first chapter. Nothing against the writer, but I had assumed the book was about women. Fair warning: it is about a family, including the father and son. Each member gets their chapters. I must admit that listening to text-to-speech, it was hard to tell who the chapter was about. I think that if an author sets up a book this way, they should include the words Chapter 1 or another number and then the name of the point of view. That would clear confusion right up front.

Once I figured out who the chapters were about and the book’s aim, I could see the novel through.

On the other hand, though this book was about an Indian-American family, it was universal in many ways. People not listening to each other. People not expressing their authentic truth. People jump to their own conclusions. Gossip. Betrayal. The reader wonders if they will ever find their way to healthy relationships. It was hard to live through all of this.

It is worth the read to learn how new Americans of other origins might see how this melting-pot culture gets in their own ways, too.

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