When the book is good, it makes me stay up just as late as a TV show!

 When the book is good, it makes me stay up just as late as a TV show! I have to set an alarm and stick to it. I went to bed late last night because I had to finish the book I was reading. Here’s an excerpt: “Does this story have a happy ending?” Bobby asked.

“There is no such thing as an ending,” she said. “Good things come out of bad things, and bad things come out of good things, but it always continues. It’s as in life. Books are life. There is just the part you read. They start before that. They finish after it. Everything carries on forever. You are only in it for those pages, for a tiny window of time.”

—David Whitehouse

This is from The Mobile Library, which I am reading.

Spoiler alert. The main character is a motherless boy with an abusive dad. The mom left, and he is waiting for her to return. At some point, he ends up running away in a mobile library. It is lyrical; it is fantastical; it is the stuff of childhood imagination. Spoiler alert: His mum is dead. She died in a car accident. He is in denial. I was in denial with him, so I was shocked when I found out what happened to his mum. I would not have read the book if I had known this detail! I’m glad I read it anyway!