Aaaaaand that's me

Womp womp. Next and last Readathon post.

Ethan Frome
Mini, you say? How so? This is one of the smallest books I own, physically, that isn't some kind of novelty book. It's one of those cheapie Signet Classics editions I bought a lot of in high school.

So, I read Age of Innocence, not that you'd know because I think I still have not posted about it, which reminded me of this book which I hated with all the hate I could muster in high school. Ethan Frome was THE WORST OMG. But Age of Innocence wasn't bad, and it made me curious to re-read this one and see what the deal was.

Unsurprisingly: no, I cannot read a whole book in an hour, and I really only got through a couple of chapters, but it's not as terrible and boring and pointless as it seemed back in junior year. (Or it might have been senior year, which would also explain a lot.) It does have as its theme "New Englanders have sucky lives" however. Edith Wharton, ladies and gentlemen.

This copy is indeed the exact copy I had in high school, meaning that I have circled the characters' names and highlighted all the most obvious descriptors of them. I also have a sentence written at the end of each chapter summarizing it, which I vaguely recall the teacher requiring us to do. Apparently as late as this I had trouble distinguishing the author from a first-person narrator, because in the frame chapter I have written "The author tells of her 'discovery' of the troubles of Ethan Frome and sets depressing beginning." Extra points deducted for that "tells of" nonsense. So even after reading only a couple of chapters of Ethan Frome it has already taught me humility.

And now I guess I have to read the whole thing, like, on my own time. Oh, these cruel burdens that we unwittingly call down upon ourselves!

Have fun with the rest of the Mini-Readathon, mini-readers!