A Weekend of Reading

I did something this weekend that I haven't done in a really long time.

I devoured a book.

It all started Thursday night, when I ran a hot bath with cranberry bubble bath, lit a candle, and went searching my TBR Shelves for a book to read while I soaked. I slid a hardcover volume from its position between The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd and Gods in Alabama by Joshilyn Jackson and then I slid into the tub. From the moment I opened the cover and read that first page of Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult, until I read the last word on page 440 this afternoon at 12:35, I didn't want to (couldn't) put it down.

I don't know if it was the story or the writing style or the characters or just the moment in time that I decided to pick up this book, but it had me consumed. I barely wanted to sleep, and I couldn't bring myself to work nearly as many hours as I had planned, because all I could think about was what might happen next. I haven't felt that drawn into a story in a while.

Maybe it was my recent state of being overwhelmed, or maybe it was the dreary, rainy Friday that started off the weekend, but I fell into this book and didn't come out until I'd finished it. I hope I learned a trick or two about telling a story, because Picoult had me begging for more information at each page turn. I hope I absorbed some of her ability to build and reveal characters and their flaws. I hope I can one day write a story that sucks someone in so completely as this story did me. A whole weekend passed me by while I lived the lives of characters in a book.