Books like Why Did I Ever

This reading experience was like no other. Robison's main character invites/swallows(?) the reader far into her everyday life. One moment she is reading her to-do list, another she is speeding down the highway blasting music, out-racing the cops. One time she threw her sunglasses out her car window, then proceeded to run over them 37 times. The details of our world--fabrics, rugs, paint, pets, phones, litter, drugs, gifts, laundry, cigarettes, radios, chairs, clothes, drawers, newspapers--are in the forefront here, they vividly populate the disarray and livelihood of the narrator. At one point a chair in the laundromat is described as a "shrimp-colored scoop chair" or something close to that. The narrator is the irrational, misguided, well-meaning, clumsy, nostalgic, lazy, inspired, reckless loon inside us all. It is a joy to follow her fleeting moods and deft eye document these odd moments of life. I have never felt this way reading a book--but any time the plot was close to getting started, I wanted to get back to the thoughts and stray moments, back to life and away from the story.