I'm so close I can taste it

A reading/listening list update.

I am on disc 16 of 16 in Crime and Punishment. I am currently in epilogue 2 of I don't know how many. Usually I can read the foreshadowing of a story. I am one of those people that tell you in the first 30 minutes of a movie who is the bad guy. I can't do it in real life but I can usually see where a writer is going. Thanks Mom you taught me that skill.

This book has me confounded. I have no clue how it will end. I have been told by two different people that it is a great story of redemption. I don't see it. I have 15 to 20 estimated minutes left on this last disc and it may be trying to kill me, because I don't know how it will end. Can you tell how frustrated I am? Maybe my first mistake was equating the word redemption with the idea that it would mean a happy ending. Maybe redemption means, in this case, taking one for the team. Maybe there is no happy ending to this book like I thought all along. If that is the case, D I am not cooking for you for a month! You're the one that got me into this book and you're the one that kept telling me not to abandon it. It better have a HUGE payout in the end or you will have to learn how to make soup again.

I am so totally invested in this story it is not funny. D likened it to biking up a really steep hill once. I want my view! After struggling through this one I better be able to see 3 states. OK I feel better now.

D and I have both been on a biking book binge lately. Mostly because I keep bringing them home from the library and placing them in front of him. He tore through Lance Armstrong's "It is not about the Bike". I had to put that one aside because he comes off very arrogant. Then again if I had to face what he faced and still have the record for most Tour wins I would be arrogant too. My problem is he is arrogant and very bitter in his youth. Maybe it is my small town conservative background but no 16 year old kid should have a Camaro. I will have to pull that one back out and give it a second chance. I know how it ends but I am afraid to read about all his chemo and surgeries. I feel like I am at the scene of an accident waiting for it to happen.

I am just finishing up "Just the Two of Us" by Melissa Norton. A couple take a 63 day bike trip across the US. They even rode through South Dakota and seemed to like it! She did refer to it as desolate. I take issue with that. It is not desolate but calm and not over run with people. While I find the writing just a bit sparse it is probably how I would write it too. D is dreaming of a cross country trip now. OK that is not fair when is he not dreaming about that?

I just started "23 days in July", all about Lance Armstrong and the Tour de France. You sensing a theme here too? I can't wait to start reading something light and bouncy.

Well that is what is on my nightstand and playing in the car. Think good thoughts about the end of Crime and Punishment for me will you? I will let you know if it was worth the battle or if D is making soup. Seriously think good thoughts.