Under the Skin

  “Simply being alive was not enough to be called living." I want to like Kiera Cass. I really do. I don't know why I keep on giving her so many chances. The Selection series was garbage. The spin-off was more of the same. This one...well, let's just say that it started nauseatingly. I don't think I have ever before actually had the urge to puke from a book. So, I guess that's an achievement. Then, it got better. And then worse. And then better. There kept on being a plot point or an aspect or a turn that made me think, "Maybe she's worth her salt as a writer after all." (No pun intended...salt...yeah, it's bad). Then that little twist would twist again and make me go, "Nevermind." I did enjoy the inclusion of a line of Kafka in a buttercream frosting YA novel. (FYI teen girl books that I like but don't want to like are either cotton candy or gumdrops. Buttercream frosting...no one really likes it and it makes you ...

I have always been fascinated by pain.   I know, weird. Go ahead with the Count Rugen jokes. But I have.   My copy of C.S. Lewis’ Problem of Pain is well-loved.   I wrote an entire paper on pain in my New Testament class, and one that focused on the pain/empathy aspect of the Atonement in Book of Mormon class.   It’s a continuing fascination.   Basically, I have eventually come to realize that the ability to feel pain is actually one of God’s greatest gifts to us. In 2 Nephi, we learn that we can only experience the good of the world by also feeling its negatives.   And I’m not even convinced that pain is always a negative thing.   To feel no emotional pain is psychopathy.   To feel no physical pain is a medical disease too.   And there are too many times throughout the scriptures that good men and women cry in pain and sorrow to a good end.   I believe that Rispah wailing over her dead son was a good thing, not a bad thing, even...