Sunday Salon

With 3 days until The Gargoyle is due at the library, I'm finding it a little slow going. It's a good book, but between writing up an outline for my writing class and spending an overnight with a group of 8th and 9th grade UU teens, my reading time has been scarce for the past few days.

There's another thing, too. The book alternates between the protagonist's story in contemporary times, and a story which takes place 700 years ago, told to him by another character. Always a tricky business and it's not working so well for me. The protagonist I connected with on page one, the guy I'm rooting for to heal and redeem himself over the course of the book, isn't on the page for those parts. For me, the book loses its compelling voice and its urgency each time it switches to the other point of view. I can see that the 700-years-ago story is relevant and will soon intertwine with the contemporary one, and I'm only about halfway through the book, so that's not my final word.

I'm also reading some graphic novels. I read The Plain Janes last night, and started Escape from Special this morning before heading to choir practice. I picked up a graphic novel adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Coraline but it might be too creepy for me. I'm hoping that one or more of these will inspire a post worthy of Dewey's Bookworms Carnival before the deadline this Friday.