Out Goes One and In Comes Another

Ok. It’s official. I am abandoning Girls in White Dresses. It just wasn’t my cup of tea, I suppose. I am now about 2/3 of the way through No Man’s Land. Now, Dov’s brother, Brian has just come home from Afghanistan. His eyes glazed over, Brian seems off, even though his family is relieved that he’s home “safe”. Dov discovers that Brian may have a drinking problem, but is too scared to ask for help. What should he do? In addition to this strange finding, Brian is also having trouble sleeping and his relationship with his fiancée may be in jeopardy. On the upside, Scarlett is promising to make an effort to be friendlier with Dov’s group of “misfits”.

 

 

Throughout this middle third of this novel, the tension is definitely building with each of Dov’s new discoveries. A quote that I found at the end of the reading that I did today summarizes this really well. It reads, “Too many things about Brian are making me feel unsettled lately: the restlessness he can’t shake, his pre-occupation with war updates and with disturbing, violent movies, and also the way I’ve heard him pick irritably at Victoria until she leaves, crying. No to mention the empty vodka bottles I’ve seen in the trash can when I take out the garbage.” (This was really bad place for me to leave off on my reading because I can tell something big is about to happen, but I’m too tired to keep reading the book at the moment… :P) Dov’s description of Brian in this quote is very unsettling to me because he seems almost paranoid that something bad is going to happen. In the beginning of the book, Brian was depicted as a clean, popular person, but now, he’s evolved into some sort of neurotic old man (Not really, but you get my point, right?). It really is quite frightening to me, looking back on how he used to be. The author’s changing of Brian’s character is almost like they are preparing for his next move….

Oh yeah! I forgot to mention, I started reading a new novel called, Born to Run, by Christopher McDougall. I’m hoping this book goes better than the last … J