Moonstruck by a Good Read

I'm staring out one of the tall glass windows that makes up my work's very glass eccentric building.  Directly in front and above me is the moon.  It's slowly disappearing behind one of the ledges of the window.  Yet I know in only a few more minutes it will appear in the window directly under that.  When it's gone for good, I will no longer feel this special sense of peace.  Like this moment is just for me--as I sit in a place where  I am alone, and no one else can see what I see.
It's momentarily hidden from me, but I can still describe how it will look when it appears again.  It's a half moon, though it's cut diagonally and not straight across horizontally or vertically.  Even being a half moon, it is still in such a state that I can see the three dimensions of it.  Gloriously round, even if part of it is fading into shadow.  It lies against the bright blue winter sky, teasing me mid morning.  I don't know how long it will stay, but eventually it will disappear until tonight.

But oh, how I love the moon.  The sun and I have never really been friends.  I don't appreciate heat, which I attribute to the sun (even in the winter).  I'm a fan of light and all, but there's something wonderfully mysterious about the moon.  I find I enjoy the night far more than the day.  I like to write in the evenings, not the mornings (which I am right now disputing by writing this blog at all, but it's a preference, not a necessity).
It's strange that I love the moon, and yet when I wrote a book about the daughter of both Sun and Moon, it's the Moon that is my less favorite parent.  It's her personality--and I can't help that: It's how she was long before I wrote her.

Last night I finished a wonderful book: Flat Out Love by Jessica Park.  I enjoy finishing books at night, when the moon is high.  Flat Out Love was wonderful in so many ways.   I didn't appreciate the use of some words, but that is how Jessica wrote it, and I cannot change that.  The story was interesting, romantic, and intriguing.
I LOVE a good romance story IF it is a part of a bigger story.  I don't generally jump for just romance--there isn't enough there.  Flat Out Love isn't just some love story.  It's a story hidden within a much more intriguing story about a very strange family's hidden secret.


Honestly, the book was so good I don't want to give anything away.  All you have to know is that the MC, Julie, ends up staying with the family of her mother's old college roommate after her housing falls apart when she moves to Boston for college.  The Watkins family is quirky, to say the very least.  Each of them has their own strange idiosyncrasy.  The Greatest of these is Celeste, the 13 year old daughter: She dresses like she's 9, talks like she's Data from Star Trek, and carries around a life-size cardboard cutout of her oldest brother Finn (the counterpart of which is traveling in exotic countries).

Celeste is the real mystery--why she is the way she is.  I can begin to recommend this book enough.  It was such a wonderful read that tugged at all the right emotions at all the right times.  The ONLY problem I had with this book (besides some un-fun use in vain of The Name--which is, sadly, everywhere) was that one of the key characters reminded me of someone I knew.  I learned to late that picturing my acquaintance in my head when reading about that character was a BAD idea.  I can get over that though.

Alas, the moon has left me--gone into hiding where I can no longer see it.

And so ends my morning's musings.   Read the book Flat Out Love.  Then read my book someday when it's published.