It was no Good Wife, that's for sure.

UGH YOUGUYS. I just finished my book club reading for our meeting tomorrow and it was a big, fat pile of whyyyyyy. The chosen book was The Girls (the one based on Charles Manson's cult, so that part intrigued me, yay violence!) but the main character was just so . . . unpleasant. And the book itself (as I said to a couple friends around the 24% mark) is page after page of gross, overwritten pubescence. Her mom is weak, her crush is a loser, her friends are fat, she's obsessed with sex, and what beauty in the grotesque! The intimacy of popping pimples on the best friend's back, the 60's free-lovers with their long, split hair and scrawny, ashy knees and mosquito-scabbed ankles over bare feet splashing in algae-ridden ponds and isn't it looooovely her freckled shoulders spinning carelessly through the dust motes in the shimmer of the cracked kitchen window? Let's talk about her loose breasts and brittle fingernails again. Make it more visceral this time. Surely there's a blackhead on her sweaty neck that was missed the first go-round! HIPPIE-PROSE AND I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR IT.

I was recently part of a wonderful literary radio chat show - subject matter 'The Unlikeable Female Protagonist' and how difficult that was for Certain Genders - and one of the points of the discussion was how relatable the protagonist (male or female) had to be for enjoyment of the book to take place. I was all over the place on this matter, though I veered toward needing them not to be a-holes. I couldn't stand Jules in The Interestings and that tainted the book for me (why is she so DULL!) but somehow Humbert Humbert was okay. Holden Caulfield is absolutely intolerable to adult-me, but was adored - highlighted, dog-eared - by adolescent-me. So this is a moving target. But The Girls was basically:

Though it did make me understand how murder could happen. 

And in other news: only two days until MyBloWriMo wraps up! We all thought we wouldn't get there, but here the date fast approaches. What fortitude you've shown to THIS Unlikeable Female Protagonist. 

I hope your Mondays were slightly-more-than-decent (let's not raise the bar too high, it IS Monday, after all), and I look forward to tomorrow!

Big hugs and lots of love,

Essss