Fate Gate: Written in the Scars

In the midnight hour . . .

At the stroke of midnight . . .

Before midnight . . .

Pop culture is rife with allusions to what happens when night melts to morning.  Billy Idol, Cinderella, Ethan Hawke, and countless others have spun or starred in stories about the mythology of the witching hour.  So I knew that Matt Haig's novel, The Midnight Library, would be, if nothing else, mysterious.  Which is always nice around Halloween.  I heard about it on Ivy's Closet, and I don't take librarians' reading lists lightly.  Billy Idol, not so much.  Although I am a fan of '80s pop rock.  And comic relief.  

Anyway, The Midnight Library is the story of Nora Seed, a multi-talented but depressed thirty-five-year-old caught between life and death in the purgatory of a library -- the Midnight Library.  The librarian is Mrs. Elm, an elderly sage who was Nora's high school librarian.  Mrs. Elm supplies Nora with the Book of Regrets, a tome listing everything she ever wanted to be, including a rock star, an Olympic swimmer, and a philosophy scholar.  Nora picks a regret, then opens the corresponding book to live the life she thinks she missed out on.  Sometimes she stays minutes, other times days.  If it's the right life, then she'll end up staying forever.  But if it isn't, then she'll return to the library to try again.  So, yeah, it's the whole parallel-universe-space-time-continuum-butterfly-effect thing.  Which I could've better explained by saying that Nora works in a music shop called String Theory.  

Nora's journey is fascinating, scary, and sad.  But it's also perplexing.  Because as she test drives more and more destinies, she begins to realize that they're as similar as they are different -- and that she's unsure what it is that will make the right one "right."       

Innovative yet familiar, The Midnight Library elegantly combines the best-loved elements of It's a Wonderful Life, NBC freshman drama Ordinary Joe, and every Choose Your Own Adventure book to deliver a sci-fi-tinged, timeless tale of gratitude and self discovery.  Rich in symbols and nuance, it's also a modern parable about the importance of mental health.  When I reached the last page, I was so engrossed that I didn't want it to end.  Nevertheless, the ending was perfect.  I wouldn't go back in time and/or across universes to change a thing.  

Unlike Billy Idol, who, according to Behind the Music, was caught with the nanny on the baby monitor. 

Stockholm Syndrome Symbiosis: My Bank Robber, My BFF

Anxious People, by Fredrik Backman, is one of the strangest books I've ever read.  The best way I can describe it is as a cross between a Wes Anderson movie and a riddle.  (I should mention that Backman is Swedish, which means that I read the translated version.)  Set in a small town outside of Stockholm, Anxious People is the story of a botched bank robbery and its hostages.  But it's also about, to paraphrase Backman, a bridge and the people who did and didn't jump off it.  So it's a story about people.  Anxious people.  And as Backman says on the very first page, that includes a lot of us:

"Because there's such an unbelievable amount that we're all supposed to be able to cope with these days.  You're supposed to have a job, and somewhere to live, and a family, and you're supposed to pay taxes and have clean underwear and remember the password to your damn Wi-Fi.  Some of us never manage to get the chaos under control, so our lives simply carry on, the world spinning through space at two million miles an hour while we bounce about on its surface like so many lost socks.  Our hearts are bars of soap that we keep losing hold of; the moment we relax, they drift off and fall in love and get broken, all in the wink of an eye." (1)

I could relate.  Or at least, the old me could.  Life can be overwhelming, with expectations coming from every corner.  It's a mindset that's catalyzed by a lack of control, an idea that Backman weaves like a wayward ribbon, ending chapters, paragraphs, and sometimes even sentences with surprises that make you realize that we go through life with limited information.  It's all very clever.  And the tone is sometimes sweet, sometimes snarky, but consistently wistful, as if Backman holds all the cards but doesn't always like what he sees.  It made me feel like I was reading the story through a funhouse mirror.  That's where the Wes Anderson bit comes in. Well, from that and the character who wears a rabbit mask.    

Anxious People shows us that we're all connected, even the most troubled among us, and that it's these connections that make us human.  And not, mind you, in a let's-all-sit-in-a-circle-and-talk-about-our-feelings-kind-of-way (although I'm not opposed to that), but in the invisible, unbeknownst-to-most-of-us-chain-of-events that give our lives meaning.  Kind of like a Scandinavian, hipsterish It's a Wonderful Life.  Because not all bank robbers are evil.  Some of them are people who just lost their way and need the friendship of a good hostage or eight to get back.  

In Stockholm and everywhere.

Oh Great, Oh Golly, a New Paper Dolly: Please Save Me from Scrubbing this Toilet

Cat & Jack, Target 

Banned, Modcloth

Two Betsey dresses are better than one,
Two Betsey dresses mean two times the fun.
Ms. Johnson dresses, so pretty and new,
Just the right garb for a great girl like you!

Sort of sounds like a little girl's birthday card, huh?  The kind that comes with a paper doll and coats you with glitter when you open it.  I may be thirty-eight, and it may not be my birthday, but I was super psyched to find this pair of Betsey Johnson dresses for a song on Zulily.  I love their crisp '40s-'50s silhouettes, from their pretty puffed sleeves to their gently flared skirts.  I especially like the lemon-print one because it's my two favorite colors: sky blue and yellow.  If you look closely, you can see that it even has lemon-shaped buttons (the floral one has rose-shaped buttons, although they're kind of camouflaged).  I think it's these whimsical, one-of-a-kind Betsey details that really sold me on these frocks.  Wearing them makes me feel like one of those retro ladies on magnets and notepads who make cracks about not doing housework.  Take that, Donna Reed.  (Just kidding.  I love you, Donna, especially in It's a Wonderful Life when you say that that crumbling old house is full of charm and romance.  Also, when you ask Jimmy Stewart why he must torture the children.).  Because no little girl wants to grow up to do laundry and vacuum all day.  Instead, we want to play grown-up dress-up, whether that means putting on something pretty or a lab coat or -- and here's an idea -- a lab coat that's pretty.  I can see it now, classic white with rainbow floral lapels and maybe a belt to cinch it in.  Get in on this, med wear manufacturers.  It's a goldmine.       

Bathroom cleaner companies, sorry not sorry.