Well, I started it out of a sort of morbid curiosity. And now I kind of want to finish it, because it just keeps getting worse, and I just keep wondering what on earth this author will do next.

I am glad I have no such curiosity because it sounds like something I would not enjoy reading. Not even a little bit.

This is disturbing. Elsie's father keeps getting upset when she says that she loves Jesus more than she loves him.

This book seems like it's more overtly Old Testament than a lot of them, but the underlying message and the intense emotion is the same.

What do you mean by Old Testament?

I'm also really having trouble figuring out the money in this book. I'm used to things in old books seeming absurdly cheap, but the amounts that people are paying for things here seem like just as much as we'd pay now, if not more.

Fourth post in a row? Is everybody else out having lives?

My shoulder is really hurting now. It ended up really painful during PT this morning, and then they used a TENS on me and that brought the pain down, but it's coming back now.

Hil, I have no life either... just me and a bottle of wine.

I don't even have the wine. Just soy milk, and the creepiest book ever.

Her father's friend, the one she later marries, is visiting at Christmas. When he arrives, he picks her up and kisses her on the cheek.

"'A merry Christmas and a happy New Year!' little Elsie," he said, kissing her on both cheeks. "Now I have caught you figuratively and literally, my little lady, so what are you going to give me, eh?"

"Indeed, sir, I think you've helped yourself to the only thing I have to give at present," she answered with a merry silvery laugh.

"Nay, _give_ me one, little lady," said he, "one such hug and kiss as I dare say your father gets half-a-dozen times in a day."

She gave it very heartily.

"Ah! I wish you were ten years older," he said as he set her down.

"If I had been, you wouldn't have got the kiss," she replied, smiling archly.

"archly"?

creepy indeed

Is it better to drink alone at home or at a bar? Seems to be my holy grail question

I'm also really having trouble figuring out the money in this book. I'm used to things in old books seeming absurdly cheap, but the amounts that people are paying for things here seem like just as much as we'd pay now, if not more.

Some foods that were once very expensive eventually became cheaper, and then rose in price with normal inflation.

What kinds of items caught your attention?

Actually, it was the allowances that first caught my attention. The kids -- eight-year-old kids, who live in a semi-rural area where going into town, where the stores are, is a special treat -- are getting ten dollars a month. Elsie spent close to a hundred dollars on Christmas presents.