Sold

Tuesdays I get to drop Elizabeth off at the Lexington Park UMC for "Kids' Day Out," which means I get a day to myself. The past month, I spent the entire day writing and revising, but today, I played around. :-) First, I went to the gym with my friend and burned a helluva lot o' calories. Then we went to a pastry shop and each bought a scone, thus replenishing ourselves immediately from those just-burned calories. After that, I went to the local book store (Bay Books) and ordered Elizabeth Bunce's book, A Curse Dark as Gold (so excited about that one!). After that, I reheated some pizza and found some cool writing-focused blogs.

And then, I voted. (Yay Obama!)

After that, I went to the local coffee shop that is not Starbuck's (for once) and sank into a wooden chair (as if anyone can really do that) with my cup-o-earl grey and Sold, by Patricia McCormick. I'd been trying to read it for the past week, but each time I opened it up after crawling into bed, I quickly lost enthusiasm. For starters, it's about a young woman/girl who is sold into sexual slavery (i.e., it's going to be depressing). Then to top it all off, it's written in vignettes, which I can't remember ever encountering in a novel before. The first few pages, I kept thinking of other things (anything but Lakshmi, the protagonist) and then fell asleep before getting "caught" by the book.

Well, with my mind buzzing on milk tea and my last free hour, I dove into the book again. This time, I got caught. It's beautiful and sad and naive, so far. I want to jump in Thursday Next-style and rescue her. But I can't, and it distresses me! It's like reading Anne Frank's diary, but with a bit more hope (I'm holding out on a rescue or escape in the end!).

It makes me want to write books like this that smack people in the face with the reality of our world's problems. And that in turn makes me sigh, because I really would like to write something fun and dashing instead. Am I only meant to write stories about pain and pride?