I don’t know where to start with Melissa Marr’s Ink Exchange, and I don’t know how to express how much I loved it without giving away spoilers, so I’m not going to say much. I know there are a lot of mixed reactions to the book out there, and I understand that. But my experience of reading it was very emotional, and my take is that it’s an important, delicate, beautiful book about survival — about choosing to live after trauma, even though that means choosing to feel the pain you’d rather numb yourself to.

I believe in this book. I found it to be full of heart, feeling, and disturbing truth. Did you read it? What did you think?

Next up, I just finished Donna Jo Napoli’s The Smile, which takes place in Florence at the turn of the sixteenth century. I don’t think it’s much of a spoiler for me to tell you that the smile referred to is the Mona Lisa’s smile; the novel is Mona Lisa’s story, as Napoli imagined it. (Napoli explains in a postscript that no one is certain who da Vinci’s model was for the painting; this is definitely a work of fiction and imagination; but the political history is real and fascinating, and the imagined story is beautiful). I confess that I didn’t give this book the attention it deserved, because I’ve been running around like a headless chicken lately. But even my scattered attention could tell that it was a wonderful book. I’m going to read it again. And here’s a question — can anyone recommend more Napoli books, particularly taking place in Italy? I think I’ve found a writer whose books touch my soul. I want to read more.