Happy & Sad: 30 Day Book Meme

Not long ago, I discovered a lovely book blog, Bibliotica. On it, she was doing a 30-Day Book Meme. According to her blog: "I can’t remember whose blog I saw this on, but I’ve let this site sit idle all spring, and I need to jump-start some content, so I’ll be doing the 30-Day Book Meme, but I will not be posting meme entries every day. Instead, I’ll be posting them 2-3 times a week, til I’ve done all thirty."

I am taking it even more slowly, covering the days here and there. My "30 Days" began last December when I first introduced this meme. Today I'm covering Days 5 and 6: a book that makes you happy and a book that makes you sad.

Happy

I loved Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs as a kid, and I love it even more as a mom. From the sweet grandparents inspiring their grandchildren's imagination to the idea of food falling from the sky, I loved every moment of this book.

Maybe it's because I'm obsessed with food, because I find a little slice of happy on every page. Okay, maybe it also shows my wicked sense of humor. I'm happiest when I'm amused, and seeing a pancake covering a building gets me every time.

Sad

The first book that popped in my head was Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye. I read this book several years ago for a book club, and I cried throughout. It exposed the underbelly of human nature.

I remember being nervous to turn the page, afraid of what would happen next. At times, I didn't think I could go on. Too much sadness. But Toni Morrison crafted such an emotionally intricate tale with characters you cared about that I never could put it down.

Just to give you an idea, this is the book summary from Amazon: Each night Pecola prayed for blue eyes. In her eleven years, no one had ever noticed Pecola. But with blue eyes, she thought, everything would be different. She would be so pretty that her parents would stop fighting. Her father would stop drinking. Her brother would stop running away. If only she could be beautiful. If only people would look at her. When someone finally did, it was her father, drunk. He raped her. New York Times: "So charged with pain and wonder that the novel becomes poetry." Winner of The Nobel Prize in Literature

What is your happy/sad book? Was there a book that made you equal parts happy and sad?