Book Review: I Have a Bed of Made of Buttermilk Pancakes by Jaclyn Moriarty - Page 2

The quirky insecurity and magical thinking of the characters becomes endearing. Moriarty paints their restlessness and longings in such a way that we, too, are swept up in the ill-advised affairs (in every sense of that word) of the Zing women. For all the off-kilterness of the Zing's world, you can't help seeing that your world is a little crazy, too. For all the well-meaning-but-illogical rationalizations of the Zings, you can't help remembering a time when you did that, said that, felt that. There is something of the childlike about their logic, something innocent and hopeful, the kind of idealism that our concept of adult pragmatism demands we tamp down with a heavy poker of averages, means and expectations. You are simultaneously grateful and envious that you are not a Zing.

The biggest hurdle for I Have a Bed Made of Buttermilk Pancakes is the very unconventionality that makes it worth reading. It is always a challenge when you read a book that is of genre, but not quite in it, and for this book, that dimension-hopping happens many times over. The challenge is that genre has a syntax. Knowing the rules of the genre we are reading in makes the reading easier. When a book doesn't conform to that familiar structure, it can seem pointless or nonsensical. (This is why cliches happen, I suppose.) And this is definitely a book that zigs when you expect zags. It can be dizzying at times. But as you get used to the motion, you realize you're not so worried about the zagging or the zigging, but about the Zings. And it's at that moment that you'll hope for a rainy day and a cup of tea so you won't have to put the book down.

Article Author: Bonnie

Bonnie writes about books every Thursday at Fourth-Rate Reader, about everything else at Signifying Nothing, and sometimes she resorts to pictures. She lives in Toronto.

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