Spring Reading Thing 2011 - What Happened?

My success rate for Spring Reading thing was about fifty percent.  I'll recap my list and explain (make excuses for) why I didn't complete my challenge:

1. Swamplandia by Karen Russell.  I had high hopes for this book because the book flap was enticing.  Although the book had a few great moments, it was a slow-paced read overall.  I suspect Russell was trying to dazzle us with her prose rather than move her story along.  It could have been a great story had the pacing been a little better.  Here's my extended review if you'd like the deets on this one.
2. The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown.  I had low expectations for Brown's novel about three sisters, a sick mother, and a Shakespeare-obsessed father because I thought it was going to be fluffy chick-lit (which I will read, but that's not what I was seeking here).  I ended up liking this story.  The characters were well-developed and showed growth.  It wasn't melodramatic (and the subject matter could have easily slipped into melodrama).  I found myself laughing during some scenes and my heart constricting in my chest in others.  Here's my extended review.

Cordelia Andreas’s Braided Bread

As I read Eleanor Brown’s The Weird Sisters, I got a nagging craving for fresh, homemade bread.  Cordelia, the youngest sister, is pregnant, and when her nesting instincts kick in, she heads for the kitchen and whips up multiple loaves: St. Lucia bread, chocolate bread, Hawaiian bread – you name it.  The passage below will give your cravings “a rise” as well:

            There is nothing that is not beautiful about bread.  The way it grows, from tiny grains, from bowls on the counter, from yeast blooming in a measuring cup like swampy islands.  The way it feels a room, a house, a building, with its inimitable smells at every stage of the process.  The way it swells, submits to a firmly applied fist and contracts, swells again; the way it stretches and expands upon kneading, the warm supple fell of it against your skin.  The sight of a warm roll on a table, the taste – sweet, sour, yeasty on the tongue. (page 286)

           
Who knew baking bread could be so sexy?  So tempting?

In honor of Cordelia Andreas, the youngest (and my favorite) Weird Sister, I made Braided Bread.  The braided varieties were her favorites because she liked the challenge of getting the strips even, then tying them together in such a way that they were still distinct after baking.  Here’s the recipe:

Review of The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown

The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown is one of Spring’s hot new releases.  When I picked up the book, I had a couple of fears.  First, I thought it would be just another dull, depressing family drama.  I have enough family baggage in my own life.  Why would I want read about this family when I barely want to be part of my own? 

My other reservation about this book is that I suspected it was Chick Lit being marketed as literary fiction.  Why should I fear Brown’s novel is over-hyped chick lit?  Because putting Shakespeare in stock characters' mouths won't make it a “serious literary work".  First, we have Cordy, the youngest sister, a wandering free-spirit who sleeps around and can’t settle down.  We have Bianca (aka Bean), the middle sister, a shopaholic who steals to support her clothes addiction, drinks fancy cocktails in NYC clubs, and who also sleeps around.  Finally, we have Rosalind, the eldest sister, who is an approaching-forty, dowdy-feeling professional woman who can’t let go of her control issues.  Brown gives us three Shakespearean-monikered characters, each of whom represents an archetype in the Chick Lit world. I refer you to an article called Bad Chick Lit Novel Clichés.  Brown includes 4 of the five Chick Lit situations in her novel: the shoe addiction, the surprise pregnancy, the sister’s wedding, and the “OMG, I’m turning 30!” crisis.  But don’t be put off Brown's novel yet – read on.