I’m Alive!!!

I know I’ve been absent. And I know no apologies or explanations are needed. Here’s what I “read” so far:

I tried listening to this audio book before Christmas as I made gifts for my family. I thought it would be funny. Not only was it billed as a “humor” book, the irony of making Christmas gifts while I listen to the dispute of a fictional character who delivers Christmas gifts was mildly amusing to me. What I’ve learned from this challenge: there is little policing when it comes to shelving a book in a specific genre, particularly humor. The only time this book was funny was when it broke the fourth wall drawing attention to it’s own absurdity. There were areas where it was interesting, but it made my brain hurt with it’s circular reasoning and philosophical rhetoric. It just kind of left me asking, “Ok, so what was the point of that?” If you are really interested in philosophy and have a dry sense of humor, this book is fantastic. I’m much more into humor with some sense of philosophy, so the balance did not tip in my favor.

Then we have this gem:

I fell asleep listening to this audiobook last night. Not because it was boring, but because I was that tired. It was about 1am and I was in deep about 4 hours. When I woke up this morning, I picked up where I left off, before having my morning coffee, before even leaving my bed! Forgive me for passing judgement on this religion, but it’s pretty cray-cray. She talks about how her mom became involved in Scientology and how her and her sister were brought into the church at a young age. All the money she spent donating and paying for her courses at the church. Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’ wedding and what a fiasco that was. Her friend and wife to the head of the church hasn’t been seen since like 2006 and nobody is offering proof of where she is, if she is ok. The way they cut off former members of the church, which often results in families being torn apart. Luckily her mother, step-father, sister and brother-in-law stood by her side. But extended family of the in-laws and all of her friends that were active in the church had to distance themselves from her. As an outsider, I always viewed Scientology as ridiculous, almost like a joke, but this book really paints some horrifying images of it’s cult-like tendencies. She narrates the book herself. I found her thick Brooklyn accent very rewarding. It made it more relatable as she recounts events in vocabulary that was far from it.