What I'd Give for a Good Book

Many of us compulsive readers have to finish reading any book we start. It's supposed to be a sign of maturity--or old age--when you can bring yourself to throw in the towel when you're reading something that's taking you nowhere.

Well, I've thrown in the towel on at least six books this summer. They were all adult books, so I shouldn't go into them here. I will say that the last two didn't seem to have a story. Or I couldn't find it. One of them was a work of fiction that I thought was supposed to be philosophical. I kept thinking, When's the philosophy starting? Then I realized that maybe it already had, and I just didn't get it.

I've gone back to YA and am reading I am the Messenger by Marcus Zusak. A bank robbery is foiled in the very first pages. I was reading along and thinking, Thank God! Something is happening!