"There's loads more to talk about. We've only just gotten started."

Hey Megan,


   So initially, I looked at the book and thought, "Meh, it's tiny with big print, that should only take me, what, a day?" and proceeded to shamelessly procrastinate on reading it. And boy, am I glad we set our deadline for a week after you finished The Fourth Hand, rather than a few days later. Because otherwise, I would have been IN TROUBLE.  

An excellent quote from the book, taken from here.

   For some reason, I just had a lot of trouble getting into the book. To be honest, it's probably because I, like you, am more inclined to think of the IMPROBABILITY of love at first sight. And I will readily admit that my attitude is certainly, in part, a result of still-too-recent heartbreak. On the wrong side of a three-year relationship, I scoff at the idea that two strangers can meet and instantly (or almost-instantly, as is the case here) fall in love. 


   But, like you said in your post, and I must , upon reaching the conclusion of the novel, admit, the chemistry between the two is very real.  I especially liked the part about the animated duck movie, because I am most definitely that 21-year-old girl who still rushes to the theaters to see the latest Disney release (I saw Tangled twice in theaters. Twice!), and I'd like to think there's a guy out there who may not understand it, but finds it endearing. Or, better yet, shares that love. But I digress. Basically, yes, they're disgustingly cute and perfect for each other. Kind of like the couple that emerges in 13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson (do you remember her from the Festival of Books? She was the awesome, quirky author on the panel with Maggie Stiefvater who talked about life at Catholic school). And, once again, I find myself wishing life were like a book, where the boys may not be perfect, but they sure are perfect for you. And you find them, like, right away (oh Nawat, you will always be my favorite crow <3).


   Now, ignoring the fact that they're young and disgustingly cute in love, yadda yadda, I, too, loved reading the progression of her relationship with her father. Now, I'm not from a separated household. In fact, my family dynamic is closer Oliver's, minus the infidelity. What I loved, however, and what I think is striking no matter what your personal life may be, is that Hadley was able to reconcile with her father. And I think that's rare. I feel like society encourages people to run from their problems, rather than face issues and work to make things better. Family is no longer something you fight to keep.  If something's broke, people don't try to fix it.  They move onto the next best thing.  So it was very refreshing to find a book where the opposite happens, where a family fought (though Hadley did so reluctantly) for love.


   Thanks for recommending this one! After some reluctance, I was pleasantly surprised to find I enjoyed a book I would not have, at this point, picked up for myself.


Keep Calm and Read On,
Becca


PS~Hadley, incidentally, is the name of Sookie's cousin. :)

"When you're dead, you're dead," Mrs. Clausen had said.

Dear Becca,

This was hands down my least favorite of the books we’ve read so far. (Get it – hands down?) Despite the fact that I did not enjoy this particular novel, I can tell that Irving is a talented writer so don’t worry, I won’t judge based on this one read.

 (Hebrew Cover)

It wasn’t so much that the story is bad – it’s just that I didn’t like it.  I expected the book to center more around the concept of the hand transplant. (Before this book, I didn’t even know that such a thing was possible! I had to doublecheck to make sure Irving wasn’t just making it up.) I can’t even imagine having someone else’s hand (or any body part for that matter). I understand Patrick’s embarrassment about only having one hand and struggling to wear a prosthetic, but I didn’t feel like he wanted a new hand badly enough to merit the transplant. I didn’t feel like his heart was in it. Actually, I rarely felt like Patrick’s heart was in anything.

One of the biggest problems for me was that I didn’t like any of the characters in this book. The only character I was ever close to liking was Dr. Zajac’s housekeep when she decided to lose weight and change her life – and actually did it! But even she turned out to be a little too quirky for my liking. If I’m being honest, my favorite character would probably be Otto but he is so mistreated (in my opinion) that liking him only makes the story worse.

Yes, the more I think about it, I realize that my real problem with this book is the fact that I feel like Mrs. Clausen is so traitorous to her husband. Otto is haunted by the idea of his wife having a relationship with Wallingford while he is still alive. It’s horrible the way she pressures him to sign the agreement to donate his hand if something were to happen. And then something does happen and he dies and what does she do RIGHT after he dies? Has sex with Wallingford! Who does that? Poor Otto must be rolling in his grave!  Mrs. Clausen says it herself: “When you’re dead, you’re dead.” There is something so deeply wrong with her logic…She holds onto Otto’s hand even though she acknowledges that when you’re dead, you’re dead.  A part of me thinks that she is actually obsessed with Wallingford, not the memory of her dead husband, and just uses the hand as a means of developing that relationship.

Going back to my problem with Patrick not feeling invested in the hand transplant… it struck me as very strange that he had no reaction to losing Otto’s hand. Wouldn’t that be really disappointing? Here you’ve had a hand for a year and then you lose that one, too. But he’s so obsessed with Mrs. Clausen that he doesn’t seem to care about losing the hand; it’s losing her that he’s worried about. I suppose this should be romantic in theory, but I didn’t find it to be so.

I found this book to be haunting in that it really made me wonder about people. I’m going to draw another Audrey Niffeneger comparison here. It reminds me of her book, HER FEARFUL SYMMETRY, in which the characters are equally mind boggling to me.

Okay, that’s the most ranting I’ve done in a post so far!

Until we read again,

Megan