Juice

   This book was definitely strange and challenging to read and focus on. It was hard because the author would change direction and talk about something else. All the chapters seem to have one thing in common though and that is her love for juice. She seemed to have a liking to this particular drink. It didn't matter what kind it was she liked it. In the first part it was hard to understand what was going on, all I got out of it was she grew up in the mountains and described it in great detail. She kept referring to the number eight a lot also. "I was the youngest of eight very mild mannered kids," "I had not eaten in eight days," "I came upon a school of eight fish." I'm not sure what the meaning behind that is or what the crisis is she is trying to describe, but I think it might mean how long she has gone without juice, I am not sure.
   The first chapter also puts a lot of focus on her "hometown." She would explain her family in great detail, "attracted to facial markers," and "chose to live in mountains," "these now familiar stains and settled here." I thought she was very judgmental, but in a good way. She wanted to figure people out. She also does not want to be alone because she says she did not care if they came back happy or angry, as long as they came back. Maybe when she is alone she finds comfort in her juice.
   Loneliness seemed to be a reoccurring theme in this book. It scares her to death and she will do anything to stop that from happening. The third chapter "No Through Street," seemed to bounce around a lot. She would bounce around and talk about one thing and as soon as I was able to follow along with her she changed directions and talked about something else, then came back to the original topic. Very distracting and hard to follow along.

First Sleep

   In this story, she keeps referring to different sleeps she has had or is having and what she encountered in those sleeps. I am not sure exactly what she means by these "sleeps," but I get the impression maybe they are about sleepwalking or maybe sleep studies done on her. I believe she is referring to herself when she talks about Mrs. Gladman, "I usually say I am seeing myself when I am asleep." "A person walks out into the morning from a dream and connects the dreams to things." I think this means she remembers things vividly from her dream and tries to relate them to real life. "In one memorable night there were fourteen sleeps." Maybe this means she was awakened fourteen times during her sleep because she also says "three trips to the bathroom." I was intrigued about the part "The note eventually said everything about dreaming." I would like to know what this means. This was an interesting story. I think everyone in this story plays a role in her dreaming. Maybe they are all characters in her mind and she dreams about them. Maybe this is all one big dream since most times our dreams do not make any sense or we cannot put certain pieces together from our dreams. This is kinda how I feel about this story.