Begging for Recs

Sooooo. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle wasn’t really for me. It felt too conventional, I guess, and the subject matter didn’t speak to me. Apparently, a lot of other people really enjoyed it, so don’t take my word for it.

And, oh horror… my TBR pile is down to one book!!! What the heck? I’m having trouble finding reading material. Recommend, plz? Here are a few books I adore. Have you read anything similar?

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
Anything by Margaret Atwood
Anything by Tracy Chevalier
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
Anything by Hemingway
In the Company of the Courtesan by Sarah Dunant
The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham

See any patterns? Got any ideas? Help a sistah out!!

The husband and I waltzed past the Dark Knight crowds–which wound around the building–into our movie of choice, The Happening. Critics *hated* this movie, but we love M. Night, so we had to take a look for ourselves. Glad we did… It was freakin’ brilliant. Difficult, yes, challenging, graphic and low-budget, yes. But brilliant.

This movie was *actually* scary, not just gimmicky with substance-less surprise gore. It was masterfully suspenseful throughout. It also had a thought-provoking sci-fi premise and beautiful, emotionally-realistic writing. I can’t for the life of me figure out how anyone could give the big-budget action movie of the week an ‘A’ while giving The Happening ‘C’s and ‘D’s. I seriously don’t get it.

M. Night refers to Hitchcock quite a bit in this one. He *is* the Hitchcock of our generation, I believe. I suspect his movies will endure. (Surely. o.o)

Did anyone else see it? Like it? Have any idea why the critics slammed it? (Okay, it was graphic, but so are a lot of horror movies.) *srsly confubbled*