Lorrie Moore, Anagrams

Lorrie Moore, Anagrams. Extraordinary. Absolutely fucking comic and engrossing and worthwhile. Benna is a character with so much imagination, so much character, so much more everything - her voice is half-monologue, half dialogue, alternately and concurrently understated and hyperbolic, dryly witty and broad slapstick. Tragedy that was so funny I had trouble breathing and read bits out loud to myself to laugh again. Seriously considered starting over at the beginning when I got to the end.

George Eliot, Middlemarch

George Eliot, Middlemarch. I enjoyed this so much more than the first time. I have more sympathy for the constrained choices and maddening behaviors of the young women, probably because I no longer identify with them. I think that it tied up too neatly with happy endings for all honesty, but it does make for a satisfied glow at the finish.