Spun sugar

Bet Me - Jennifer Crusie (St. Martin's Press, 2004)

Over the summer, I did some research on genre fiction and along the way came across a reader's advisory guide to romance fiction that pointed me toward Crusie. I couldn't tell you what it said, but I noted the name with a "maybe I'll check this out sometime" sort of attitude.

So Bet Me takes on your typical mis-matched, romantic comedy couple. She's serious and a bit overweight, he's hot shit with a bad reputation. And thanks to a pile of misunderstandings all set off by a ridiculous bet by her ex, they end up on a date. Which is where fate takes over.

This book was insanely charming. I found everybody adorable. Friends, sidekicks, evil exes and family... it was like living in a little fairy world. With great banter. Seriously, the banter - and not just between Min & Cal - was really well-done. When I read romance, I tend to read it with a cynical eye. (Because I am - or ought to be - too cool for it, too intellectual for it.) But maybe because I'm trying to be more sincere in my enthusiasms in general, or maybe just because Crusie got past my defenses, I was sorta smitten. It was a really sweet reading experience.

This is water

(aka an update on Erin's own Infinite Summer)

I'm a member of that generation that has a hard time with sincerity. Whenever feelings get a little too real, we need to say something caustic, ironic, to back away. Is this a generational thing, or a cultural thing, or just part of being young? I'm not sure. Anyway, I found it again yesterday while reading about Mario Incandenza:

The older Mario gets, the more confused he gets about the fact that everyone at E.T.A. over the age of about Kent Blott finds stuff that's really real uncomfortable and they get embarrassed. It's like there's some rule that real stuff can only get mentioned if everybody rolls their eyes or laughs in a way that isn't happy. (p. 592, btw)

And that's the thing about Madame Psychosis for him (and prob not just him) - she talks about "stuff that is real."

Because I suspect we all secretly crave that sincerity, even as we are embarrassed by it.

So this is the real thing I read 2 pages before, about Mario, that just pulled and pulled at me:

He can't tell if Hal is sad. He is having a harder and harder time reading Hal's states of mind or whether he's in good spirits. This worries him. He used to be able to sort of preverbally know in his stomach generally where Hal was and what he was doing, even if Hal was far away and playing or if Mario was away, and now he can't anymore. Feel it. This worries him and feels like when you've lost something important in a dream and you can't even remember what it was but it's important. Mario loves Hal so much it makes his heart beat hard. He doesn't have to wonder if the difference now is him or his brother because Mario never changes.

Oh, and the title for this post? That's from here.