The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight, by Jennifer E. Smith

From the jacket: “Today should be one of the worst days of seventeen-year-old Hadley Sullivan’s life. Having missed her flight, she’s stuck at JFK airport and late to her father’s second wedding, which is taking place in London and involves a soon-to-be stepmother Hadley’s never even met. Then she meets the perfect boy in the airport’s cramped waiting area. His name is Oliver, he’s British, and he’s sitting in her row.”

My take: Compared to many of my Cybils reads, this novel (which I started reading while on the way to New Orleans solely because it included an airplane ride) was sweet, but without a lot of substance. Although it touched briefly on Very Important Issues, it did not dwell on them and instead focused on the budding romance of Hadley and Oliver, who share an overnight plane flight from New York to London.

Hadley, who missed her original flight by four minutes, is a high school senior from Connecticut prone to anxiety attacks and remarkably angry with her father. After heading to England for what was supposed to be a semester, he made the move permanent by separating from Hadley’s mother and finding a new girlfriend, a woman whom he’s about to marry even though Hadley’s never met her. Hadley’s agreement to participate in the wedding has been lukewarm at best, so between that and her panic attacks at being trapped in enclosed spaces, she is not looking forward to her rescheduled flight.

Then she meets Oliver, a British student studying at Yale, also toting dress clothes with him on the plane. He’s cute and dryly witty and helps her keep the panic at bay both at the airport and through the flight. His flirtations are enjoyable, but, of course, it’s just for a few hours. They’re heading their separate ways when they land in London, after all, with Hadley still needing to get through an event she’s loathing with people she can’t stand.

But when a series of events unfold during the course of the wedding day, will she be able to get over her own initial perceptions in order to see things — and people — as they really are? Or will she find that it’s too late?

Reading this book was like eating all the chocolate chips out of a container of trail mix. You might suffer through the raisins and enjoy the peanuts, but each one of those chocolate chips is going to make you smile for the very respite it offers from an otherwise reasonably healthy mix. And, let’s face it, sometimes you just want a sweet snack — or novel — to devour in an afternoon.

Pages: 236

It’s late and I’d like to go to bed, so I’m afraid we’re opting for a bulleted list tonight.

Things I hope plan to accomplish this weekend:

• Finish four books (One is done; a second is started.)
• Go to the charity benefit at Politics and Prose (done! bonus: Christmas shopping!)
• Wash laundry (a priority should I want to wear underwear next week, which I do)
• Vacuum
• Write three book reviews
• Knit 10 rows on a sock
• Wash the bathroom sink
• Handwash socks
• Make applesauce (with some apples that are looking a little peaked)
• Make a pie/tart (with some apples that look perkier. A perky pie! ha! (yes, I’m going to bed soon, I promise…))
• Make bread (okay, the bread machine will do the brunt of this, but still…)
• Mop the bathroom floor
• Mop the kitchen floor (since I have to move stuff to get to the food mill, anyway)
• Switch out my summer and winter clothes
• Listen to music
• Plant fall/winter veg in the garden (this includes calling Frager’s to see if they have garlic bulbs)
• Think about going over to the Arlington Library to acquire more Cybils nominees (if not this weekend, then a must-do by Wednesday)
• See if Michael and Julia have time to get together
• Sit outside in the sun, should it appear
• Go to the farmers market
• Make a pot of chocolate
• Get a minimum of six hours of sleep both nights and still get up before noon.

And with that bullet, let me away before it becomes impossible!

I’m a little confused about the days of this week, but it seems that today was Thursday, which means it’s time to look back on three beautiful things from it:

1. Because we personally suffered no ill effects and my most immediately important people also got off easily, two days off from work due to a hurricane seem pretty damn awesome. (Clearly the damage caused by the storm elsewhere was not remotely beautiful. But you get my point, right?)

2. Since the storm departed, the temperatures have dropped to seasonably cool. Wool blankets and socks and hats started seeming reasonable over the weekend (particularly since we keep the window open until pretty late in the season), and today I got to wear a cool-weather dress I bought over the summer.

3. We went to see Frankenweenie tonight. I had a small skein of yarn that needed unknotting, which was perfect for when the movie got to be too much for me (as Tim Burton movies are wont to do).

How about you? What was beautiful in your world this week?