I love books. I love to read. I am a voracious reader.
This should come as no surprise.
My husband is a big reader. So are the girls, which makes me very happy. When we tell them to turn off the TV and go read a book, they do it! Happily! The girls read so much that I had to put a book reading ban on breakfast during the week. They were doing more reading than eating. Then we were jammed up trying to get out the door for school on time. Best kind of problem, right?
This could have very easily been written about any one of my kids.
I love when I get surprised by a book. I started reading “The Regulars” by Georgia Clark a few weeks ago. I downloaded a sample onto my Kindle and promptly gobbled it up. I put the actual novel on hold at the library, waiting patiently for it to become available. I read “Commonwealth” by Ann Patchett (excellent) in the meantime. I listened to “The Couple Next Door” (terrible) on audio book while I waited. Finally, finally, “The Regulars” came up. I borrowed it on Wednesday afternoon and finished it Thursday night at 11pm.
I inhaled it.
What in the world, you’re wondering, made you plow through that book so fast?
The plot was fresh: Clark explores what happens when three friends are given the chance to go from “regular” to “glam-tastic” using a product of questionable origin. Hilarity, chaos, and introspection ensues. The way the author combines words and turns of phrase was just so delicious. This book pulled me in so thoroughly, in my head, I was casting who I’d like to see in the movie adaptation. I had a few questions when the book was over. There were a few threads that had been left dangling, but ultimately, it was a satisfying read. I’ve talked about books that end with a “click of a box” — the conclusion being the soft “click” that comes when closing the lid on something. This book had that.
I sat there, hungry for more. I wanted to know what happened next. I wanted to shake my head like an Etch-a-Sketch to clear out everything I’d just read so I could experience it all again. I couldn’t do that, so I did something else.
I wrote.
I want to eat her words. I want to hold them in my mouth, each bon mot exploding –champagne effervescence — against my tongue, against my teeth. I will find the umami in her sentences, the sweet in her sumptuous paragraphs, and the tangy bite of character growth steadily intensifying as chapters progress.
I want to eat her words. Each name has texture. Each scene has a richness.
I want to eat her words. I want to lick the page until my tongue is fuzzy and black with typeface. I want to pick up stray letters with the tines of my fork and delicately bite down just to savor the crunch of capitals and crack of punctuation marks.
I want to eat her words. I want to swirl my fingers from the top to the bottom of the page, a word cloud of plots twists perched on the tip of my fingers like carnival cotton candy. Each witty turns of phrase, a snap and crack against my teeth.
I want to eat her words until I am full, button-of-my-pants-digging-just-a-bit-uncomfortably into my belly.
I want to eat her words until my breath smells like paper.
Maybe the magic of “The Regulars” rubbed off on me a little bit.
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