my summer of amazing luck

I really loved A Complicated Kindness, and Miriam Toews is one of Kristen's favourite authors. So, the other day when I was trying to decide which book to read next, Kristen suggested My Summer of Amazing Luck. I wasn't sure I was in the mood for it (I had already spent over half an hour looking at all of Taylor's, Kristen's and my books and hadn't been into anything) but Kristen suggested I read the first page and see. I started reading standing up, and by the end of the page I was in bed, ready to start the book.

I really enjoyed it, possibly more than A Complicated Kindness. I think A Complicated Kindness had more great one liners, but My Summer of Amazing Luck has a far better plot. This book is basically a litany of tragic lives, somehow presented in a good light. The narrator moves into a housing project, and most of the books ends up being the sad life stories of everyone who lives there. But it's not what you expect, because it's not so much tragic as inspirational. The characters in the book are great. I guess the book's sort of about the shitty things that happen in life, but that there's still happiness and hope, in small things. It's about being poor and being a mother and being in and out of love and knowing full well that all men are useless.

"Do what makes you happy because there is no sure thing. Just because you can pick out four-leaf clovers doesn't mean you'll get lucky."

"The first part of the song is so beautiful because the second part is so sad. We can't have one without the other. It doesn't turn out like we thought. But still it's a beautiful song."

It was a really great book - Miriam Toews has such a different, engaging style of writing.