CBR Bingo: Home, Something, Home

The stars at night – are big and bright
Deep in the heart of Texas.
The prairie sky – is wide and high
Deep in the heart of Texas.

I have lived in North Texas my whole life, excluding my Freshman year of college where I went all the way to Oklahoma, but I traveled a little farther south to Austin with Pamela Ribbon’s Why Girls are Weird because I’ve already read all the books about JFK’s assassination and was at a loss for what to read for this category (plus the rules say State or Country, not city).

I have read Why Girls are Weird numerous times over the years and it is just one of my favorite books. Even with all the changes in social media and blogs (or as we call them at work influencers) it still feels as relevant today as it did in 1999. Also, this book was written almost twenty years ago and I sprouted a full head of grey hair upon that startling realization.

Anna Koval has a dead end job at a school library in Austin so she starts a blog to teach herself HTML and to get back into writing as a birthday gift for her fabulous best friend, Dale. She begins to get fan mail almost immediately- including a (UNT- where I finished my degree!) college student named Tess and a male admirer going by LDobler- which spurs her to write daily. Anna begins mining her past for material including stories about her now ex-boyfriend Ian. She justifies the fibs by allowing her online personality, AnnaK, to have it all despite her lackluster real life as Anna Koval.

After Anna’s father gets ill she begins sharing more of her real life with LDobler, despite him believing she is in a relationship with Ian, and things begin to get complicated. Anna begins struggling with who knows what version of the truth and she nearly gets caught in her lies when Tess comes to meet her. Everything comes to a head after Tess encourages her to speak at a conference about blogging and Anna realizes her life online isn’t as anonymous as she thought.

“So, will you come to the conference with me and speak?” Tess lit a cigarette. “You’re qualified, and the fact that you know nothing about the the community you’re in is incredibly fascinating.”

I love this book and will continue to pull it out every few years. It is the ultimate literary comfort food.