The Princess Bride & odds and ends

This week I chose another title from my TBR pile.  The challenge was to read a book that celebrates Spring, I thought immediately of The Princess Bride.  Because, really, how can you not think of spring with a name like Buttercup?  I saw this movie for the first time as a teenager and then again several times with my girls as they have grown up and each time I always ask myself...'is there an actual book?' or was that just part of the movie?  This past fall, for my birthday, my girls surprised me with a copy of the book!  

I LOVE LOVE LOVE the actual story of The Princess Bride, but I did not love the first 32 pages of the book.  I was SO frustrated with the author's narcissistic asides and critical comments regarding his wife and son (and his subsequent struggle not to commit adultery).   I found myself wanting to shout 'PLEASE please for the love of cheese stop talking about yourself and just get to the story'.  

And finally on page 33 he did just that.  

This is one of those rare stories that has something for everyone.  True love, high adventure, shocking treachery, and deepest honor.  My favorite, of course, is the love story between Buttercup and Wesley.  Who, as a young girl, has not dreamed of living such a beautiful love story?  

My favorite lines are found on page 105, after the Sicilian cries "Inconceivable" one too many times:

"He's left his boat behind," the Spaniard said.  "He's jumped onto our rope.  He's starting up after us."

"I can feel him," Fezzik said.  "His body weight on the rope."

"He'll never catch up!" the Sicilian cried.  "Inconceivable!"

"You keep using that word!" the Spaniard snapped.  "I don't think it means what you think it does."

Every single time, this makes me giggle.  When I read it to myself, when I paused the story and read it aloud to my girls, when I typed it up for the blog post.  

I loved this book all the way until pages 331 through 355, when I realized Mr. Goldman was talking again about himself, I happily skipped forward until page 361.  I am not sure how much of his introduction (the first 32 pages) and how much of his epilogue introduction (pages 331 through page 355) are fictional, written to further the story line of his fictional rewriting/editing of the infamous yet fictional S. Morgenstern?  Either way - whether completely fictional or partly autobiographical, I found them to be tedious, frustrating, and very much skip-worthy.

Now for the 'odds and ends' part - I re-read/listened to The Hunger Games for the Brighter Winter challenge in February, so last week I decided to go ahead and listen to Catching Fire and this week Mockingjay.  I love these three books so much, Suzanne Collins wrote an incredible trilogy!!!