Evening clouds Book

3.5 stars, rounded up.
I decided to do something about the unread books on my shelves, so closed my eyes and pulled one out. I'm not sure when or why I bought this one, but I know I got it at a used book sale. I figured I'd give it a try and DNR it if I didn't like it.

I figured out pretty early on that this was the literary equivalent of The Jerry Seinfeld Show - a book about nothing. Little snippets of conversation between family members, mother, father, 3 children. No plot, no drama, no theme, none of the things that normally go into a novel. Nothing ever really happened.......but I kept reading.

And chuckling, because on every page was a part of family life that I recognized and sympathized with. Kids who don't want to wash their faces and brush their teeth, who put off homework til the last minute, who don't know school assignments, who fight with each other. Parents conversations, "What shall we have for dinner?" "Where should we go on vacation?" "Should we worry about our son's attitude?" "What should we plant this spring?"

Yeah, I know, it sounds boring......but I kept reading.

This book was written in 1964, when I would have been 11 years old. And even though it took place in Japan, half a world away, and more than 50 years ago, it brought to life a world so familiar to me it actually sent me back to growing up in the little southern town of Catsburg, NC. We kids didn't want to brush our teeth or do homework either. Our parents worried about us. Life just plodded along like the action in this book, nothing ever really happened, except that it did. We grew up, our parents grew old. And I finished the book.

I will end this review with a quote from Maya Angelou:

"We are more alike than not, my friend,
we are more alike than not"