Cindy Skaggs

I hate when I do this to myself.  Only a few chapters, I think. Next thing you know, it's morning and I cannot be a fully functioning adult. Because--book.

 

I had pre-purchased Outside the Lines and noticed as I was going to bed that it downloaded at midnight. I thought I'd read a few chapters before bed. BIG MISTAKE. There was never a good place to stop reading! My heart just hurt for these characters and at times I was tempted to jump ahead to see how they made it work, because there was too much pain to wade through before they got there. For me, David and Maria w well-drawn and I totally understood what was keeping them apart emotionally.

On the outside, this is a secret baby book, but the baby isn't secret for long. As I read through it, I thought it was more of a Beauty and the Beast story, because while the hero is fabulous looking, he's a beast inside, and it takes a special, patient, loving woman to tame what ails him. A truly fabulous read (and worth losing sleep over).

I am stunned by the images. I held back reading this until I "had time," like it was dessert to be savored. And indeed, it should be savored, but more like a favorite cup of tea that you sit down with day after day, not something to be doled out in penny-pinching fashion. It's marvelous, and I should have enjoyed it sooner.

There's something about the vivid line that draws me to any written work, and so I was immediately drawn in by the first poem, Today: "The air is unhinged, I believe, and full of jazz." Yet in Bad Fame, each poem leads to yet another perfect line:

"Your silhouette is sewn into the lace curtain," he writes in a later poem. Yes! What a visual, what a memory to store.

There are so many images see, and so many questions he posits. It's a beautiful collection of poems and I'm the richer for having it near me to savor.