"hordes of baby penguins"

I'm reading this book called Wide Eyed by Trinie Dalton. It was a random choice; a customer ordered it and I liked the cover and the sentences I read when I flipped it open, so I ordered it and bought it yesterday. I chose it over a bunch of other amazing books I had on hold because I asked Margaret which one I should buy and she flipped Wide Eyed open and read

"Dear Human,
Thank you for assuming elves are literate!"

We were both sold. Anyway, it's an amazing book and y'all should seek it out. It's like if Gabriel Garcia Marquez was born 25 years ago and listened to a lot of Sonic Youth. Or it's like Francesca Lia Block if Tori Amos never existed. Or it's like Jonathan Safran Foer but with a lot more kittens and horror movies. Or it's like nothing I've ever read, and it makes me want to write more than anything I've read in a long time. Here are a couple excerpts that will explain this book better than I can...

"There's something evil about a world in which I can think of a hundred jobs I'd like, and none of them will support me. Puppy rancher, wild mushroom collector, designer of fantasy postal stamps, incense critic. I'd like to run a sticker museum, where I'd curate shows: The History of Scratch and Sniffs, or Great Designs: Stars and Rainbows. But who would come?"

I used to play a lot of Burgertime. I was living by myself in the Mojave Desert, and coyotes had just eaten my cat. Burgertime is a Nintendo game where the player is Chef Pepper, best burger-maker in the world. Chef Pepper positions buns so that lettuce, tomatoes, and yellow cheese will fall onto them from outer space. Since the game design is so primitive, the ingredients are chunky and squared and the colors are flat. The lettuce doesn't have the real thing's multiple shades of green. The buns are solid brown, and their rounded edges look zigzaggy, as if they're cross-stitched. Since Burgertime is my favorite video game, I sometimes think I should embroider a quilt covered with hamburgers and Chef Pepper's arch villians: Mr. Hot Dog, Mr. Pickle, and Mr. Egg. Quilts are also useful weapons in the fight againt loneliness.

It's honestly not all as cutesy as that. There's a lot of death and sex and fur and blood and sadness, but (just like real life) there are also unicorns and dinner parties. Wide Eyed. Trinie Dalton. Read it up!