I haven’t read an actual book in an embarrassingly long while. Or so was the case until this week. I’d pick up the occasional book, but I just wasn’t in the mood, or napping seemed a better use of my energy (or lack thereof, more accurately). My normal book reading time (commuting) has been used for other purposes (sleeping) because my normal sleeping time has been usurped by commuting (from roller derby). Everybody got that?

I finally started reading again this week, and even though the first book of the year merited no more than a “meh” response from me, I’m still glad I’m getting back into the habit. I think I’m going to use Twitter to write wee book reviews as I work through my “to read” list. And maybe I’ll keep track of things using Good Reads, but we’ll see. I love systems and lists and stuff, but tend to get caught up in the organizational process that I forget what I’m supposed to be doing and then get annoyed by the superfluous stuff and give up all together. It doesn’t have to be so involved. I don’t know why my brain likes to sabotage itself, but there you go.

Right, so… no more babbling.

The first book I read this year was Dear American Airlines by Jonathan Miles.

Synopsis: A man stuck in O’Hare Airport en route to his lesbian daughter’s “wedding” (his quotes, not mine) writes a novel-length letter of complaint to American Airlines and highlights scenes of his life and work outlining how he got to where he is now. He’s a giant screw up and is counting on getting to his daughter’s wedding so he can at least say he’d fulfilled one promise in his miserable life.

Review: Meh. The protagonist (Bennie) is not supposed to be likable, but I found I didn’t really care about him or any of the characters. I just wasn’t convinced, and in the end I was sort of rooting for him to kill himself just so the book would end. SPOILER: he changes his mind. Benny is fairly witty at times, though, and his self-deprecating humor drew a few laughs. I didn’t hate it, but I wouldn’t actually say I liked it.