I have this book now, The Fault In Our Stars, by John Green. My kids are insisting that I read it. “It’ll only take you a couple hours because you are a fast reader.” “Your grandchildren have all read it, and don’t you want to ‘connect’ with them by reading it, too?”
I know what the story is about and I am not looking forward to reading it and having my heart torn out by the roots from the poignancy of the story. I lived through the era of Erich Segal’s Love Story, cried through the book, and shamelessly wept my heart out in the movie theater as Ryan O’Neal held Ali McGraw in her hospital bed while she died. Jeez! It is a beautiful and touching story, but sad to the max. Now I need to choose a day or an evening of this glorious Oregon summer, when I will have my heart twisted and wrung and handed to me, to read The Fault In Our Stars,, this generation’s Love Story.
It sits on my nightstand making me feel guilty for being such a wimpy emotional coward. I pile my New Yorkers on top of it thinking I’ll get to it soon, after I read those first. I finish the New Yorkers and there is The Fault In Our Stars on top again, so I cover it up with a cooking magazine and a science magazine. It calls to me beneath the new pile.
I promise I will read it. Really. But sometime after we get back from the Portland Sunday Parkways bike ride, and after watching our grandson’s rock band, Death By Thumb, play on the famed Arbor Lodge Stage, and after our good friend’s visit with us for a few days, and after our trip to our favorite resort on the Oregon coast. Maybe I can fit in a day for having my heart wrenched apart before our trip to Vancouver, British Columbia for the Triathlon our kids and grandkids are participating in. Or before the annual picnic with the family at Camp Silver Creek? Or after the picnic but before our weekend at the Shakespeare festival in Ashland, Oregon? Or maybe I’ll wait until we get back to Arizona where it is too hot to do anything outside anyway. That might be a good time.
Is there any good time? I’ll just have to pick one, that’s all. I’ll let you know what I think of John Green’s book after I’ve read it – sometime later.
carpyharpy 