The Brothers K

This book took me forever to read… but that is not a bad thing, for I love every.single.page. I’ve mentioned before that I’m not a big Jane Austen book fan. I read all the Anne of Green Gables books as a kid, but I skipped so many paragraphs as it was just way too much fluff, too much detail for my liking. Leave the scenery to my imagination. Leave the intimate details of someone’s appearance to my imagination. The Brothers K had tons of detail, but with few words. The autumn fruit, loved by many as the filling of America’s favorite pie, bobbed for at Halloween by hundreds of costume clad children, a reflection of the brightly colored leaves of the tree from which it was plucked, blah, blah, blah... vs. The apple is green. I’ll take the latter any day of the week and twice on Sunday, maybe thrice – I think apples are super yummy. I ate every word up of this book. I loved the story, well, most of it.

Do you know anything about baseball?

Do you know what a K stands for in baseball?

Here’s a hint – when a team gets three of these while at bat, the inning is over

K = strikeout

And this book is full of strikeouts. But as a good sport will do, the family members just move on and try again. Sometimes they try a different at bat stance, sometimes they go for the bunt – they don’t just stand at the plate and use the same swing no matter what life brings them, They try over and over again; they grow from their mistakes; they grow in the journey. I really enjoyed the author’s writing style. Like I said, it took forever to read (I think I had to recheck it out from the library twice) but it is because I read every single word, not skipping a one, ok, maybe I skipped a swear word here and there. No fluff. This may be a book that the guys will enjoy more, but frankly, it was recommended first by a female friend who has been recommending a lot of good stuff to me lately. She has pretty good taste in books.

Another reason I’ll admit I was so drawn to this book: the father in the story grows up in the same town my dad grew up in. And the story pretty much all takes place in the Northwest. I am a Northwest girl through and through, much of the story I actually could relate to.

I definitely recommend this one.

Enjoy!

(and I really have read a number of books this summer, I'm just struggling to find time to blog them. I am trying to do better...)