How many pages do you read before you decide 'this book is just not for me'? Yesterday I started 'Eat, pray, love' and so far I've read about a quarter of the book. I hate it. It's the tale of a whiny woman who searches her soul as she travels for a year, spending 4 months each in Italy, India and Indonesia. Whine, moan, cry and complain.... this woman is suffering serious depression. So far the majority of the book is a big boring monologue ... uugh... I hate it.
The torture ends today. I'm deleting the book and starting something else. I haven't decided yet what it will be. Decisions, decisions....
On another note, Ramadan is going smoothly. The weather was super hot today - it reached 109 F. No one wanted to do anything. The girls got a late start in the kitchen but managed to get a nice meal put together, finishing up just as the call to prayer began. I think they were hoping I would step in and take over with the cooking today - but I'm remaining adamant that they do all the cooking this year. It's for their own good - tough love.... hehehe... I'm such a mean mommy.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2010/aug/14/eat-pray-love-julia-roberts
ReplyDeleteYou're not a mean mom - you're a great mom for giving them those life skills. My girls have been cooking Thanksgiving dinner since the age of 12 - I'm going to have to learn how to do it all over again now that they've grown up and moved out.
ReplyDeleteI just finished "Eat, Pray, Love" and have read many reviews similar to yours. I'd like to recommend a book I've started and can't put down: "Desert Queen" by Janet Wallach. It's about the Victorian Brit named Gertrude Bell who had many adventures in Arabia. She was w-a-y before her time. It should be a movie!
It would be great to see pics of the iftari and post about the recipes!
ReplyDeletelove ur blog
Ramadan Mubarak for you and your entire family! I loved the book The House of the Mosque by Iranian-Dutch writer Kader Abdolah. It's a beautifully written story about a family who live in a house next to mosque in 1960s Iran.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, too. I tried to read "eat, pray, love", but found myself really wondering what this woman's problem was, and hoping someone would pass her some cioccolato (chocolate) or cannoli (yum, the thought makes me drool) already. Needless to say, I didn't make it out of Italy with her!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed "The Cry of the Dove" by Fadia Faqir. It follows an Arab woman, Salma, from an unnamed country (though all indications are that it's Jordan) to her new life in Exeter, England as "Sally", and then full circle to her native land just before the end. I won't give it away, but it made me cry. You just get so connected to the protagonist that you feel for her. It does have its "adult content", but it's not too graphic and is brief.
I've (sort of) been fasting too, but more out of the fact that I'm on two different antibiotics following a dental appt. and they're making me feel "icky" than due to Ramadan. I've sometimes in the past performed a "solidarity fast" with my Muslim friends, but the last time I did, I was in my Nursing Assistant class (fall 2007) and nearly passed out when we were looking at some pictures of nasty open wounds. Needless to say, I switched majors after that quarter was up. Nursing is just a career field for people with stronger stomachs than I have.