Welcome back!

I read a lot and I like to think I’m a good reader. I know this because people pay hundreds of dollars to get me to tell them how to be better readers. As a good reader, I’m picky, there are lots of things in the world that I want to read and I know that I will never have a chance to read it all. This fills me with fear and sadness sometimes. It also means that I start a lot of books that I don’t finish.

When a friend recommends a book to me, I am one of those rare people that actually picks it up and gives it a shot. Since I read about 700wpm in novels, I can risk investing my time in 50 pages of something just to see if it is worth finishing. Often, the book ends up back on the shelf or headed back to the library. I am a chronic book starter, often having 5-7 started books going at once.

Last week, however, I finished one. Now, finishing a book is not remarkable – I finish several books a week. However, I finished this book the same day I started it. I had no desire to dip in and out of this book, I didn’t want to put it down, and I certainly didn’t want to stop reading it all together.

It was recommended by a fellow blogger Shortly after I finished it, being the trendsetter that I am, this friend suggested that everyone read it and is willing to back up that suggestion. I have to admit that I concur.

With The Contortionist’s Handbook, Craig Clevenger has written one of the most compelling love stories that I have read in a long time. It doesn’t read like one from the beginning. In fact the protagonist renders love down to its most biological explanation by describing it as mere endorphins. However, this cynicism is witness to some incredibly gritty, realistic, and heart-breaking writing on the subject of crime, passion and addiction. The ending made me catch my breath and desperately search for closure. This is a novel that is infuriatingly good – the only thing left to do when I finished was to rush out and get his other book.

I am now half way through Dermaphoria, which is unfolding a bit like a dream. Clevenger’s new protagonist has a more philosophical tone (in contrast to the stark realism of The Contortionist’s Handbook) which suits the story and has drawn me in.

You’ll certainly hear more about it when I’m done reading as I love to kiss and tell. Plus, word on the street is that there is hot sex scene coming up.