Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

Because really, I’m planning on playing games tonight.  Yesterday was my 17th wedding anniversary, however, and so when my hubby brought me home a late lunch (a vendor took him out before he left work, so he’d eaten already), I finished May B. over Panda Express while he vacuumed out my just-emptied closet and assembled the closet organizer that matches his.

(And yes, we are totally at the age and stage in life where time to organize and complete projects without the kids is a completely valid way to celebrate.  If that worries you, you clearly don’t have four children, one of them a crawling baby; rest assured, however, that we also ate ice cream, watched shows, and slept in.)

Here’s the thing about May B.; I can’t tell if I liked it but didn’t quite love it, or if it merely suffered from the ending being read in frustratingly small portions.  I rather suspect the latter, although I did struggle to relate to May’s way of handling her unexpected abandonment in a dugout on the Kansas prairie.  If I’d read it as a child, I think that would have seriously gotten in the way of me enjoying the book.  After all, I’m a bit too much of a worrier to understand May’s periods of lassitude; I might not have known what to do, but I would have sought some measure of reassurance by throwing myself into the kinds of daily tasks that still needed to be done.  My hubby, however, responds differently to stress than I do, and so I could understand May far better as an adult.  (I could also respect how her learning disability affected her sense of self, which in turn also affected her response.  Again, not something I would have understood as a child.)

Ultimately, May makes the brave choice and (with help!) finds her way home; the way she faces the future is, again, something I can respect but not relate to, but it still makes for a good story.  If you like historical verse novels, this is worth your time.  (But try not to read most of it in big chunks, and then finish the last part in tiny bits because of a crazy schedule.  That never enhances your reading experience!)