Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge Book Jar

   A friend and I have been reading books together for about a year, just randomly choosing books we both wanted to read. We found the idea of a book jar on Pinterest and loved it. No more choosing at random (well relatively speaking.) We just had to decide which books to put in our jar. 

   Pinterest is my favorite way to find book lists, so I started looking. I saw a list of the 339 books mentioned or referenced during the seven seasons of Gilmore Girls. Perfect, I used to watch Gilmore Girls and introduced her (years later) to the beauty that is Gilmore Girls, the quick dialogue, the mother/daughter relationships, growing up, and the literary and movie references. All 339 titles are now in our book jar. 

   After talking about it we decided that we couldn't have it truly random, neither of us wanted to get stuck reading a lot of nonfiction or classic after classic after classic, so I color coded the titles. Nothing too specific, and it's probably not as accurate as it could be, but for our purposes it'll work just fine. I just used some Mod Podge to stick the key on one side of my jar to help us when drawing our next read. 

   The first book drawn is The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. Some of the books look dreadful (A Monetary History of the United States anyone?) but we plan to give each book a chance. 

Dove Season by Johnny Shaw

From Amazon.com
   Twelve years have passed since Jimmy Veeder set foot in the Imperial Valley of southern California. The only person that could bring him back is his father, Jack, who is dying of cancer. Jimmy is prepared to spend Jack's final days joking and reminiscing, but the old man has other plans. He needs Jimmy to cross the border into Mexico and find a prostitute named Yolanda. It's a strange final request to be sure, but Jimmy's not one to argue with a dying man. With his childhood buddy Bobby Maves in tow, he heads south, looking for Yolanda among the seedy bars and neighborhoods along the Calexico/Mexicali border. Their search leads them to Tomas Morales, a rising star in the Mexican underworld. While dangerous to most, his childhood friendship with Jimmy brings out his loyalty and spurs him to help. But just wen Jimmy thinks his quest has ended, an unexpected murder sucks him further into the violence and danger of Mexicali. In his fight for survival and search for truth, what he uncovers calls into question everything he thought he knew about his father - and will determine just what kind of man he himself truly is.

 
   This book is A Jimmy Veeder Fiasco, the first of its kind and rightly named. Some of the shenanigans Bobby and Jimmy get up to are simply a fiasco. They are an embodiment of Murphy's Law, anything that can go wrong, will go wrong, which makes for a hilarious adventure. I laughed out loud so many times while reading this book. Halfway through I was already recommending it to my friends that read. I like that the story was more unconventional than most. I've not read another book quite like Dove Season.
   I don't have too many things to say about this book, but I did love it. What I liked most was the funny antics. When Johnny Shaw was setting up a situation I would think, "here we go again." I recommend this to anyone who is looking for something a little different with action, adventure, and comedy.