This book is the bee's knees

Jenna has categorically refused to participate in any of the many book clubs I have proposed over the years. While being the single kindest person I know, she has the ability to look like she might stab you when you propose things like book clubs, movie watching, or taking naps. Right now, however, she is tabbing and higlighting the living hell out of a book called Eat, Pray, Love and even said that it "is changing her life." In addition to all of the qualities I have mentioned above, Jenna is about 1/40 of the emotional spaz that I am. When I heard that a book was changing her life I knew it was in my best interest to stay far away from it.

So I'm about fifty pages in and it's incredible. It starts out with a woman in an unhappy marriage who has a huge emotional breakdown and restarts her life. Her account of the breakdown is so heartwrenching that have to remind yourself she somehow came to terms with everything and wrote a lovely memoir of getting back on track.

I'm about to be embarrassed by this admission, but that's cool. When I was reading this, half of me was thinking that my life isn't all that bad right now. Circumstances are forcing me to start over in a way, but it's going alright. The other half was wondering if it is better to have to claw your way out of the rubble when your life unexpectedly implodes. It's kind of the same irrational feeling I get when I watch The Biggest Loser and wish that I weighed 300 pounds so that I could have a real reason to work out. Being one bigger size than I'm supposed to be is just not motivating enough. Life threatening obesity, that's where I need to be. It's stupid but that's all I can think about when I see the huge women in spandex being forced onto the world's largest scale.

I digress. This book is taking me forever because I'm tabbing and highlighting and re-reading pages, which I usually don't do unless I'm confused about the plot. J and I are having our first ever book club, and it was her idea (HOLLER!). Emily might even join the discussion. In short, it's Kretsch's worst nightmare, right here in Minneapolis. I'm pretty jazzed about it.

Also, I just read that the author appeared on Oprah, telling her that she writes down her happiest moment of the day each night in her journal. This sounds remarkably like the episode I mentioned in this post, so I'm feeling like I connected with this woman even before I started reading her book. Life's grand.