On “The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper”: A Book Review

Title: The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper 
Author: Phaedra Patrick
Genre: Fiction

About the book…

On the one year anniversary of his wife’s death, sixty-nine year old Arthur Pepper faces the challenge of cleaning out her wardrobe. When he finds a charm bracelet he’s never seen before hidden in one of her boots, his curiosity is peaked. Little does he realize that calling the number on one of the charms will start of a journey of discovery about his wife, himself, and what living really means. 

What I think…  
This is not normally the sort of book I read; It takes place in present day, it’s a little sappy, it’s not particularly quirky or eclectic, and it’s not fantastical, it’s just very modern, but I liked the cover and the premise, so I decided to give it a go 

My one problem with it is at times I almost felt like I was reading a children’s or YA book with adult themes in it, although it wasn’t at all badly written.

Furthermore, while I really liked the premise and understood what the author was going for, it did lag at certain parts probably due to the style of writing (I’m not a huge fan of shorter sentences). 

Those two things aside, there were still quite a few positives to this book. The characters are endearing, each flawed in such a way that they add to the overall theme of constant shifting and changing that occurs with living the life one wants to lead or accepting what life throws at you and making the best of it. I also really like how Patrick chooses to use a wide range of ages for her characters instead of focusing on one age set, which I felt gave the story more meaning. 

As a side note, I think this would make a fairly good light weight movie if done right. 

To sum it all up… 
A charming (I couldn’t help myself, sorry) read about life and living after the death of a loved one. While this isn’t one I’d add to my list of books to revisit, it’s a pleasant and quick summer read. ♥

On Random Recommendations: A Photo Post

I don't normally pay attention to recommendation pages, but now that I've noticed these random categorizations, it might be worth checking for a good laugh. (And just in case you're wondering, all but two books in both categories were fairy tale related--ironically they didn't have any of the fairy tale cookbooks among them!) 

 ♥ ♥ ♥

On It's O-fish-ally Summer!: A Photo Post

Happy first day of summer! 

It was time to change the bulletin board at work and I went with a fishy underwater theme. Plus, who can resist a good fish pun when the opportunity presents itself?

Here's a closeup of the fish and crab, since not all of them show up as nicely on the background.

  
Further adding to my overall underwater enthusiasm or rather the start of it, was my signboard decorating.

After doing both of these, I'm feeling kind of tempted to make some paper surfboards or beach related things to string together for a banner.

♥ ♥ ♥

On an Enid Collins' Glitter Bug Box Purse...

...that for some reason I haven't done a post about yet.

I've had this purse since last July. One of my co-workers had gone to small antique store nearby during her  lunch and ended up buying one of two Collins box purses, which they were selling for what I considered a reasonable $27. After some thought, I decided that I'd head over after I was off work to get the remaining one. It was supposed to rain that day, so I grabbed my umbrella and made the fifteen minute walk to the store with nothing more than a little drizzle. In the short time it took me to pay for the purse, it started to rain in the annoying manner where it suddenly switches what direction it's falling, which led to an interesting trip back to my car of trying to hold the umbrella in a way that would protect that bag, trying not to drop either of them, and several near falls on some tiled areas (flip flops and tiled sidewalks are a very bad combination).  

  

I love it still has the 'Casual Corner' label!

This is one of the later ones (70's maybe) from what I've read about the logo progression over time. It's not in the best of condition; as you can see the mirror is gone and a few rhinestones are missing. The straps are also fairly worn, which would make me pretty nervous if I were to actually take it out of the house. Based on that I'm using it to store my very small collection of vintage postcards that aren't mounted on my wall. ♥