The Sugar Queen, or Why I Like Fiction

A few weeks ago I was in Barnes & Noble with Chris and trying to use the Groupon I bought ($10 for a $20 gift certificate baby, yeah!), along with the remainder of a Christmas gift card. I felt the need to use it all (and then some, apparently), so I looked around for books/authors I had never read before. The book The Sugar Queen jumped out at me since the cover was so interesting and let's face it, with the sheer amount of crap out there today, a cover is a pretty big factor for me in buying new books.

In reading the back of the book, I felt a bit of kinship with the main character. She's overweight, she likes to eat, and she hides her eating from the world. I don't necessarily hide my eating, but I do sneak snacks and other things when I'm feeling down. Sometimes I'll eat before we have dinner and then eat a full dinner, without mentioning I just ate. Phew, that's a load off. I've never actually told anyone that before and here I am confessing to the world. But does anyone really care? Probably not. Anyway, I'm getting out of that habit because I have a wedding dress to fit into in six months!

ANYway...back from my little tangent there. There's also a character who is hounded by books. Whenever she needs a book, one will show up. They follow her around and make her look like a loon. Well, I really wish I had that kind of "magic" power because people already think I'm a loon, so maybe books following me around would actually make that label accurate.

Again, I lose my train of thought. Easy to do when talking about books. But I started this book on...Tuesday and finished it last night. I read the bulk of it last night after I got home because it was so engrossing. Chris finally gave up on being awake and went to bed, and when he asked if I was coming I told him I wanted to finish my book first. For once, I was pleasantly surprised by this new author I'd never heard of. Apparently she's a NYT best-selling author for a previous book I have also never heard of. I think I liked it so much because I connected with the two primary characters and completely felt for them, understanding what they were going through and being so incredibly happy at the end, as if they were my friends.

I see a common theme here: books and characters are my friends. Remember, I'm a loon.

This is why I love fiction though. When an author gets it really really right, to the point where I stay up late to finish when I know I could just as easily finish it the next day, it's worth the money and the time spent. And fiction for me is something I connect with better because sometimes it just feels like the book was written simply so I would pick it up.