and this will be our year, took a long time to come.

[enamoured]

Annnnd for today's 30 Days of Meme: A fictional book
(Minor note: does this mean a work of fiction that exists in fiction, or a book that is a work of fiction? I DON'T KNOW, I DON'T LIKE THE WAY THIS QUESTION IS PHRASED but I'm gonna go with a work of fiction for simplicity's sake.)


(picture courtesy of boywonderkyle at Flickr)

I should probably explain the brother thing, except I don't really remember how it happened. We were in first grade, the Red Sox were in fourth place, and I had a brand new hole in my heart from losing my mother. But even though Augie and I had never talked to each other before, he was the only one who knew what to say and how to say it. (Everybody else thought they could get away with blowing smoke up my ass about Guardian Angels and Eternal Paradise, like my mother had gone on a Princess Cruise.) Pretty soon we were taking make-believe trips to the planet Twylo and losing our thumbs to alien walnuts, and that's when I knew for sure that I wouldn't be sad forever. Well, anybody who can pull off something like that for you isn't just a best friend—that's brother territory. So Augie told his Mom and Dad that they had a new son, and I told Pop the same thing. Screw biology.

I read My Most Excellent Year last summer, sometime in June. The day I checked it out of the library there was a huge thunderstorm and it knocked out our power. For the first time in years, I read a book by flashlight, I was that enraptured by it.

My Most Excellent Year is about three friends: TC, a lifelong Red Sox fan; his best friend/brother Augie, who adores classic movies and theater; and Alejandra, the youngest daughter of an ambassador who's fascinated by the Kennedys. The novel follows the three of them during their freshman year of high school in 2003, when Ale shows up in Boston and TC falls hard for her (and she's not having any of it) and Augie is in the throes of his own crush on his friend Andy. Along the way TC meets a kid named Hucky who he ends up learning sign language for so that they can communicate, Ale sneaks around to dance and voice lessons behind the backs of her parents, and Augie and Andy awkwardly fumble their way from crushing to a could-be relationship.

You know how you can watch some movies and they just leave you smiling at the end? This book was like that. I was actually kind of sad to finish it. It's funny and adorable and just plain heartwarming.

Comments

[library-of-sex.livejournal.com]

Since you seem to have good taste in just about everything, I'm putting this one on my reading list!

[starcrossedlove.livejournal.com]

Aw I read this last summer and loved it! I read it before I moved to Boston and it was so fun to recognize places they mentioned going to in the book.