You're Still The One by Erika Kelly

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Erika Kelly is at the top of my must read list. With humor and heart, she creates tempting stories of heartache and courage that are hard to resist. You're Still the One gives emotions a workout. Stella and Griffin's journey is one of misunderstandings and deep regret. When a blast from the past explodes back into Griffin's world at the most inconvenient of times, it's up to fate and family to make sure that everything turns out just right. Move over heartache and welcome back happily ever after.



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Can't Help Falling In Love by Erika Kelly

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Something about an Erika Kelly romance gives me the warm and fuzzies in my heart. Even through the inevitable heartache, I never lose that sense of hope I feel inside. From second chances to bad romances, there is always a sense of beauty in the recklessness. Coco and Beckett keep up the heart tingles with a love story that will leave you breathless. One night changes everything for two strangers looking to have a bit of fun. When the morning comes, the surprises roll in. Life moves on and heartbreak awaits, but can one unexpected twist help reunite these strangers in the night? Temptation packs a sweetly, addictive punch.

A unique, beautifully written book about that I fell in love with, got frustrated by and ended up being just good friends with.

I've decided that the best way to do justice to a book as long and complex as this one is to start by offering up my overall impressions and then sharing the detail of the experience of reading the book, based on the notes I made as I went along. There are no spoilers.

Overall Impression

"Special Topics In Calamity Physics" is a book with a personality all of its own. Reading it was like meeting a very charismatic person for the first time and being dazzled by their larger-than-life not-afraid-of-anything personal style, seduced by their erudition and left hungry for more of their stories and views on the world.

For the first half of this book, I was in love. But it's a very long book, nearly twenty-two hours of audiobook, and, just as with people, long exposure meant that, by the second half, some of the glamour rubbed thin, the erudition began to seem compulsive and irritating and I became hungry for the author to GET ON WITH IT.

By the end of the book, my admiration for it was more considered. I admired the depth of characterisation, the boldness and originality of the idea, the unashamed intellectualism of the delivery and the persistent vein of humour that kept everything human. It was an experience I wouldn't have missed.

On the other hand, I was frustrated that the book seemed to meander rather self-indulgently at times and that the impact of the bold idea was almost lost under the weight of the writing style. I was reminded of an interview with Dennis Hopper where he said that the hardest thing about making "Easy Rider" was knowing which of the perfectly shot scenes to leave out. With "Special Topics In Calamity Physics" nothing was left out.

Then there's the last chapter, "Final Exam". I hope that was humour but it felt more like a sneer.

This book may not be for everyone but I strongly recommend that you give it a try and see if it's to your taste.

My experience reading "Special Topics In Calamity Physics.

I've already posted most of these comments on BookLikes. If you're interested in seeing them in one place, please go HERE

I'm almost at the end now. Over twenty-hours listened to and less than an hour to go. 

I enjoyed the drama on the mountain and the way the impact it had on Blue and Bluebloods was covered. I found all of that believable.

Now, I've had the big reveal, which I won't share, and I'm not quite sure what to do with it.

Blue figures it all out step by step and the "it" is huge and complex and has been hidden  in plain sight all along. Now she's put a pin through it, like a dead butterfly straight from the killing jar and is turning it around in the light so I can see it from all directions. She's also providing me with the equivalent of a full set of footnotes and sources covering all evidence and inferences.

The idea really is huge and bold but the reveal has all the drama of being given a detailed technical briefing on the engines and weapons system of a Rebel TIE Fighter when what you really want to know is whether Luke will close his eyes and use the force before Vader blows him away.

So something finally happened.

Something messy, emotional, irrational, violent, cruel and irrevocable.

It happened in the presence of Blue, our main character. Not to her or by her but observed by and futilely and feebly opposed by her.

If this were John Irving, my emotions would be a mess by now. He'd have been setting me up to be ripped apart for at least a hundred pages and I would have fallen for it even as I saw it happening. But this isn't John Irving and emotional devastation isn't what Marisha Pessl seems to be aiming for.

I feel the same stunned detachment Blue does. It's a numbness I recognise and it feels more real to me than the sorrow Irving manages to drench me in at least once in every novel. Sad to say, my life is more like Blue's than not. When bad things happen, I shut the emotions down, try to do what needs to be done and, in the back of my mind, pace the cell of my distress repeating "how did this happen?" to myself.

It may seem odd but this detached response to an eruption of violent emotion has re-engaged me with the book because it seems real and familiar and yet is seldom written about.