She Drags You In By Your Feet. Wow, That Metaphorical Grip Is Really Strong.

As a fickle Futterman it is often extremely hard for me to find books that I truly enjoy. Most books I read are ones that I am really into at first, then the interest trickles down to a slow drip of thought, then diminishes altogether and I usually end up reading once a week for fifteen minutes at a time, or simply abandoning the book altogether. My list of consistently awesome books follows as such:

The Harry Potter Series

The His Dark Materials Series

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

The Hunger Games

Looking For Alaska

And I'm trying to think of others, but honestly, guys, it's hard. And this is why I often consider myself as someone who doesn't like reading. To me, a good book is something absolutely wonderful, yet a bad book can be a hellish experience to read. How do I know if a book is good or not? Recommendations and blurbs are not enough. I'd actually have to read the book! Books, although made of just paper, are frightening things to me. They can be brazenly passionate, horrifyingly grotesque, wonderfully compelling, or awfully and unbearably boring. I would rather not take the risk of stumbling across a bad book.

However. I had just had a hard experience with the book Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. It was long, it was very detailed, and it could be painfully monotonous at times. Yes, I know it's a classic, but that doesn't make it good, people. I abandoned it, as was inevitable. And so, I went venturing into Ms. Robbins' "Grown-Up Closet", as it is affectionately called by me, to find another book. I was attracted by the brightly colored, brand-new, dust-jacket-still-intact books, yet none seemed so compelling to me besides their seductive outer layers. Need I quote the saying?

The name Cisneros caught my eye at that point, and I immediately associated it with The House on Mango Street, one of my favorite books of short stories. I decided to pick it up and give it a try. The cover, while at first unappealing, attracted me because of its poetic and grammatically incorrect title, Woman Hollering Creek. Checking it out, I immediately opened it up and read the first beautiful lines of "My Lucy Friend Who Smells Like Corn". These lines are like no other - while similar to The House on Mango Street, they seem rawer, more rough-cut and deeper. Harder to swallow, to digest. Some of these two, three page stories are charmingly innocent, telling tales of Southern childhoods, ones that all children can connect to. They are nostalgic and told with a voice that is so complex that it sounds like both a child and a grandmother are narrating.

However. Some of these stories are filled with white-hot passion, experiences so intense that they are just barely hinted at. An indulgence, something that you feel like you shouldn't really be reading, but you want to anyway. The tragic love stories that just seem all to common and regular in Sandra's world. Cisneros does not over-glorify these moments, nor does she create women who are faultless and perfect. A relief from the overly-glamorous females in books and movies today. These stories, both the childhood tales and the moments of love, are brutally honest, with no detail or aspect dumbed down or sugar coated. Nothing really works out perfectly, yet the reader is always satisfied with the story's turnout. None of the characters are flawless and their dialogue is often crude and rough, yet somehow it always comes out perfect.

To me, this is what makes the stories in Woman Hollering Creek so appealing. There is a perfect equilibrium between honesty and charm, between mistake and happy endings. Sandra's writing does not make the reader feel either superior or inferior - we are completely at level with her characters. Although I haven't had the same experiences as these women and men and children in this book, the way Sandra tells the story is almost like she is dragging us into our world, sometimes against our will, so we truly can have these moments in our mind, and we can connect so deeply to these characters.

That's why this book is going on my list of consistent books. It's because the author is so skilled as to have the ability to bring the reader into her world, and not let go until the book is over. And even then, we still have that aftershock lingering in between our bones.

Do you know the feeling I'm describing? Are there any books you've read that offer the same sensation as Woman Hollering Creek? Comment and tell me what you think.