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I love the Walter Mitty reference. It's funny rather than sexy so far.

Mid-way through the book, the magic is evaporating, giving way to breakneck speed action. I'm still reading but I'm not as much in love with the story.

"Healing crystals? Didn't I already tell you crystals are for amateurs?"

He produced a canvas bag and rummaged through it until he found his crystal of choice. Amethyst.

I smirked. "I should've known. The cure-all."

There are books that you need help to experience. Reading is just the beginning. Here's an article that helped me experience 'Madame Bovary' better:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2002/...

The plot seems to have picked up. No, wait, that's because I started skimming instead of labouring through the long descriptions. Note to self: Classics cannot be read the same way as contemporary literature.

"His clothes were an incongruous mixture of the workday and the elegant, such as is taken by the vulgar to denote an eccentric way of life, an emotional disturbance, Ora subservience to aesthetics, combined always with a certain contempt for convention, by which they are either fascinated or exasperated." This sounds awfully close to the description of a modern day hipster.

The story continues, faster than I'd expect in a book written in its time. But the over-descriptive style and coy/subtle referencing make this a much more laborious read than I'd like.

Kuzhali digs deep into memories and thoughts from a time so long ago, you didn't even know enough to articulate them this way, but she does.

"I already know the rules.
Do not call it a ruler - it is a scale.
Do not put it in your mouth.
Do not use it to scrath yourself.
Do not use it to cut pieces of mango pickle.
When you're finished, give it back. Immediately."

"...and once when Madame Bovary chose to maintain that masters and mistresses ought to have an eye to their servants' religion, it brought such anger to Emma's eyes and so cold a smile to her lips that the good woman meddled no more." Nothing about Emma strikes me as wrong. But I'm going by my times where in theory, a woman has the right to her own opinions. In theory, only, though.

For a book of its times, it's moving surprisingly easily and fast, so far.

"...fear can't be released without our permission. Since we ourselves generate it, only we can let it go." "There was fear. I felt it. Then I let it go."

"Cassie, fear is the only thing that stands between you and your real life."

To every liar that said he writes for himself - "You write because you want to be read." - William Styron

This book feels a lot like Linda Goodman's Sun Signs. You try to figure out which you are and then which your friends are.

This isn't really hard to read as a friend said. Just a lot of admittedly poetic scribbles about men, identity & sex. Sort of like a very intelligent, sophisticated & literary teenage girl's diary.

As with Broken Verses, this book also feels like poetry in prose form. Cutting soliloquy, dry-wit dialogue interspersed with soul-searching nostalgia.