It’s been a long time since I put off sleep to finish a book. Sleep trumps just about everything right now, my life is just like that. That all changed last night when I found myself closing the final pages of The Birth House at 1:44am.
Sassymonkey and others have been raving about The Birth House for ages. My library, as wonderful as it is, didn’t have it and I couldn’t get it through inter-library loan. So Sassymonkey, she surprised me with it. At first, I was grouchy about that. I owe her a seriously large package and I’m horrible about mailing things. And here she is, sending me package after package after package – making me feel more guilty with each knock on the door by the postman. Also, I’m behind on my reading. How dare she send me books I am dying to read? HMPH.
TW picked up The Birth House before I had a chance. And she read it straight through, staying up long after I’d fallen asleep. This also made me grouchy. TW read MY book BEFORE I had a CHANCE. HMPH. And then she had the nerve to talk about how AMAZING it was. HMPH again.
I decided to ignore the huge stack of library books waiting to go back and picked up The Birth House on Wednesday evening. I read the prologue and promptly went to sleep wondering why this was a book to rave about… the prologue wasn’t. On Thursday evening, I picked up The Birth House and read 12 pages and promptly went to sleep wondering if I was going to be sorely disappointed in this book. I picked up The Birth House on Friday evening and read it straight through – every single page, stopping only to run over and pick up Michelle at 11:30pm and bring her home (whining about her cutting into my reading time).
The Birth House – awesome. Maybe the best book ever written. OK OK not the best book ever written but still, wonderful – spectacular – extraordinay (to borrow TW’s description). And by a Canadian, too. I mean really, Canadian writers rarely grab me and keep me – but Ami McKay, AWESOME.
Buy the book. Read the book. Give it to friends and family. Man, I might have to read it again today! Oh wait, I can’t, I need to read Inheritance of Loss, darn it.
I find it funny that both you and TW wanted to read it again right after you finished because I felt the same way.
It’s a great book. Now the other person I mailed a copy to needs to get it already. sigh.
This is another one I’ve had on my list for awhile, but haven’t read yet. Just checked the library and they don’t have a copy. I’ll try interlibrary loan and hope I have better luck than you did. Thanks for posting such a great review.