A Festivus for the Rest of Us?

Back in my college days when I used to wait tables to pay for school, and if I'm being completely honest, beer, I used to daydream about having one day a year I could tell my customers exactly what I thought.

When they told me the food wasn't hot enough (with steam pouring off of it), or that they found a hair in their meal after it was nearly all gone (one that looked suspiciously like their's) , that one glorious day a year, I could say, "You can totally tell that's a toupe you're wearing."

Or when they order one thing, then swear they ordered another in an obnoxiously loud, condescending tone, I could cut their tie in half with a steak knife drop it in their plate and smile. When they ask me why I did that, I could say, I thought that's what you asked me to do, oh did I get your order wrong again? 

As a nurse, this would also be a lovely holiday. Patients who rate their pain a twenty-five on a scale of one to ten, while rolling their eyes at me and laughing into their cell phones between bites of McDonald's could be shown what a twenty-five in fact would actually feel like and then be asked to please re-rate accordingly.

Why not such a day in the book world?

Most reviews I read are thoughtful, kind or at least balanced. Some, however, are downright mean. It's one thing to not like someone's book. You don't have to. I don't like all the books I read. Who does? It's entirely another to rip someone to shreds as if there were absolutely no merit to their work.

Recently, I was reading a particulary idiotic criticism of a friend's very fine book, and was tempted to review the reviewer. He had typos all over the stupid thing, used a word completely out of context and had the nerve to say something about my friend's poor word choices. Boring language, he said. You know what was boring? His review. I would have liked to have said so.

So, who's with me on starting a new national holiday of critiquing the critics? We could even petition Amazon, B&N, CBD and other online bookstores to have a five-star system to rate the review.


Obviously, I'm kidding. Unless you don't think I'm a passive-aggressive lunatic with too much time on my hands, in which case, January 14th is the day.  ;-)

Nothing deepens a stream like a good rain . . . or makes it harder to cross.

Jenny Lucas swore she’d never go home again. But life has a way of upending even the best-laid plans. Now, years after she left, she and her five-year-old daughter must return to her sleepy North Carolina town to face the ghosts she left behind. They welcome her in the form of her oxygen tank-toting grandmother, her stoic and distant father, and David, Isabella’s dad . . . who doesn’t yet know he has a daughter.

As Jenny navigates the rough and unknown waters of her new reality, the unforgettable story that unfolds is a testament to the power of love to change everything—to heal old hurts, to bring new beginnings . . . even to overcome the impossible.