When a book is so good...

it breaks your heart... into a million pieces.

I just finished (like literally just finished) The Sculptor by Scott McCloud and oh my stars! It was so damn good. If you haven't read it, then you have no idea how amazingly amazing it is. If you haven't read it, maybe you should give it a try. It's a graphic novel, so more pictures than words (good for you lazy readers); it's just under 500 pages, but I swear, it will fly by so fast you won't even know what happened. Give it a try... you know you want to! If you do end up reading it, listen to Vancouver Sleep Clinic's EP album, "Winter", while reading the last 100 or so pages. It's absolutely perfect! A match made in heaven, I swear.

Anyway, I just finished and ugh. My heart! I can't even... I don't even know where to begin. You know that feeling you get after finishing a really good book, like so good you know it'll has made a lasting impression on you? The second you turn that last page and you see the acknowledgements, your heart breaks a little (or a lot) and you get this empty feeling inside.

The problem with reading great/outstanding/moving books is the second they're over, you feel like you're done too. And you feel like you can't move on, like there's nothing to live for (not really...). You feel like you'll never recover from book mourning and you'll never find another book as amazing as the one you just finished. Then you start a new book, and at first you're not really into it, by the end you've fallen in love all over again, and just when you think you've recovered from the last mourning period, another starts when this book ends.

It hurts sometimes, seeing the book you've come to love end. Same goes for TV shows or movies (Breaking Bad.... still not over that...). My heart hurts... The Sculptor was not what I was expecting (which is sometimes the best kind of story). When I first saw it on the New York Times best sellers list, I thought it had an interesting premise. I looked it up and knew I had to read it. A story about a sculptor, who isn't doing so hot at the moment, makes a deal with death who grants him his wish- to sculpt anything out of anything with just his bare hands; now he has a chance to turn is his life around, but it comes with a cost. Does that not sound super cool and interesting? The moment I knew it was about an artist I was in. And a deal with death? I was sold and bought the book immediately. I had to. But as I read the book, things changed. It wasn't as I had anticipated; it was so much better. I didn't expect it to move me the way it did. On the inside of the dust jacket (the inside flap where the description of the story is) Neil Gaiman quoted that "[the book] will break you heart", and I didn't believe him, but oh man, was he right. I should have trusted him though, he is Neil Gaiman after all.

When a book can break your heart, you know it's something special, something extraordinary.