Reread

I am a rereader. I find comfort in reading a story that I know I love and that I know what will happen next. Oh, I love discovering new books too! Just. I look for sentences and events that have stuck in my mind from previous reads. If in my haste of rereading, these events are missed, I go looking for them. I remember where they are.

A different flavor of rereading is when I forget a lot about the book. Like the old saying, I might not remember what exactly the book said, but I will remember the way it made me feel. Then! It is like an almost new story that I am guaranteed to like.

I recently read Sarah Addison Allen's new book, First Frost. I have always liked Allen's work. The language is the major pull and I have always had a soft spot for magical realism. I do, however, feel unsettled at how much gendered violence is in her novels. I keep in mind that her audience women and unfortunately, this is a part of our collective experience. It isn't graphic or gratuitous. A lot of authors use violence as a plot catalyst and I know I have a hypersensitivity towards it. Anyway, not what I was trying to say.

What I was trying to say is this: I love Allen's work. I love the language and how it is so quintessentially Southern. Poetic Southern Simile. I was talking with a friend of mine the other day and she said, "I worked two jobs. Not that it could make ends meet, but at least they could wave at each other." Like that. "Coffee so sweet it could kiss you back." Lovely.

My book buying philosophy is this: Books are like dresses. To ensure a perfect fit, one should try it on before buying. So I only buy books that I love so much, I want to reread them again and again. The rest I allow my public library to house for me. I was thinking that I would like to own a few of Allen's books. I think I have read everything she has written to date. I am particularly fond of The Sugar Queen. But then I read this new book, which was a sequel to Garden Spells. It was...fine, but it did change my view of her work as a whole. It alone out of all of her books does not make the reread list. I found it dull and wanted to quit 60 pages in.

There was one particularly dissatisfying plot line that had a strange ending that my concrete brain twisted to figure out how THAT was going to work. Anyway. This is a not recommend. Or, it is a: This author decided to make this early book into a series of sorts. If you loved the first book, you will likely want to know what happens next to the characters. But as the second movie is never as good as the first, so is this book. Not nearly as good as the first or as good as any of her other work to date.