Oh, that looks like a nice book...

I recently reported about my abhorrent lack of sleep. Well, it's driven me to edge. Not by the way of Class A drugs or anything - but by the way of literature. I'm absolutely devouring books. For the most part it's working - frivolous tales and the odd re-read of a Stephen King or something are helping to take my mind off things and send me off into the Land of Nod gently. Or it was working, until I picked up Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones. Christ on a bike. I wasn't expecting that. Talk about devastation.

I won't give the plot away (what I'm about to tell you is in the blurb anyway), but it's about a young girl who was murdered, and she is telling her story from heaven while watching the destructive effects this has on her family as the years go by. I don't think I've ever been so completely captivated by a book. My Other Half actually woke up and came to see what was wrong as I was so inconsolable halfway through reading. I put myself to sleep with a headache from crying, I was so bad. But after discussing this little novel at work, I was glad to discover that I wasn't the only emotional wet sponge to be completely floored by this book.

And apparently, the film is due out next year. Great. I think perhaps I'll wait for the DVD to come out so at least if my face dissolves into my popcorn, it'll be in the privacy of my own front room. My friends will agree with me that none of us want a repeat of what became known as The 'Titanic' Incident. (My 15 year-old self was taken under protest to the flicks to see this crime against cinema by mates who loved Leo. While I'd love to say I wept over the shocking state of the script, I'm ashamed to admit that I sobbed so uncontrollably as the Strauss couple prepared to drown that my mascara streaked onto my t-shirt so I resembled a zebra, and a woman I didn't know came over and asked if I was alright when I started to hyperventilate.)

I've never had any poise when it comes to tears.