Humor and heart. That’s what makes anything worth reading to me and in chapters 5-8. This is the same excited and funny narrative voice that propelled me through the beginning chapters and kept me, for the most part, engaged. I find so much of my own desires to write in Borkowski’s work especially in his cultivation of a strong voice and his reliance on his capability to do that. My favorite chapter has to be Chapter 8, partly because of my love for hearing how people discover reading. I loved the scene where the author is at the library waiting to jump out of his skin to get his hands on the next library book. In contrast to his parents who expected very little of him seeing his motivation was magnificent.
Dangling. That’s what I felt while reading Borkowski’s book. He led me to places that I, for some reason, didn’t trust he could deliver. I am not sure where some of the sentences are supposed to take me. For instance at the beginning of Chapter 8, he states,“It was a beautiful mid-October morning, similar to the kind of sunny, crisply dry day New Yorkers now associate with 9/11.” The numbers 9/11 are too loaded to be left hanging, especially in the context of New York and police and Staten Island. I know that the sentence is supposed to evoke something in me (probably dread) but I found myself a bit confused. I think Borkowski does have these moments throughout the work where I am not her how his metaphors are supposed to make me feel. Maybe it’s because I am not this works ideal reader? I don’t know. I am enjoyed the writing overall and look forward to the last chapters.
