J.M. Barrie

One of our favorite differences between our current ward and our old ward is that the activities are geared toward people our age since most people are our age. It's not that our old ward didn't have activities, they just weren't activities I wanted to go to. For example, book group was about the deeper meaning of Neal A. Maxwell's teachings. I don't even get the shallow meaning of his words, and I'm certainly not ready for the deeper meaning. In this ward, book group is reading Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie.

I've seen Disney's weaker, much less desirable version of Peter Pan and I didn't really love it - so I wasn't thrilled to read the book. But, Audra (a nice girl that sits by me in church) said she'd go to book group if I would, so I told her I would. Wow am I glad! What a fantastic book! It's one of those books that is so well written that I just want to read it over and over again. It's certainly not character or plot driven. It's just that I want to read the the actual words. I love the writing style, I want to laugh at the insights, I want to find something else written the same way. I want there to be a sequel, but not because I care what happens to Peter or Wendy or any of the others. I just want more of that. I haven't read something I loved like that for a LONG time.

The other part of book group this month was watching Finding Neverland. Josh went and rented it for me (by the way, Blockbuster is lame and I remembered why we love Redbox) and we watched it together. I seriously cried - and tried not to, but couldn't help it! Sometimes I cry in movies because I want to cry and a movie is a good excuse, sometimes it's because I feel obligated to, and sometimes (rarely) I cry because I seriously can't help it. What a fantastic movie. I have a little crush on Johnny Depp again (my Pirates crush went away), and I want to read a biography of J.M. Barrie. What an amazing story and an amazing life. *Sigh* I just can't express how much I loved both the book and the movie - I will buy them both and make my children read/watch them over and over with me.