Happy Fourth! And the best book I've read in a long while...

I just finished the book, "The Girl With the Glass Feet," by Ali Shaw (a guy). It's weird how the book captured the setting of my imagination - just odd enough to be out of this world, while still technically a part of it. It's about a young woman named Ida whose feet are turning to glass, and the glass is taking over her body. She encounters a man named Midas by coincidence in the forest, and their friendship grows immediately, as they are drawn to each other. Midas is a young photographer whose family history is less than desirable, and he and Ida are connected by a weird set of circumstances (not related, just connected by family friends).

As Ida realises that her time is running out, she tries to kiss Midas, who wants to kiss her back but is too scared. He runs away and leaves her, and she is devastated. In the woods, he encounters a man, and they have this conversation:

"Do you know what it's like to lose someone, Midas?"

"Yes."

"Someone you were in love with?"

"No."

"Have you ever been in love?"

"Erm…"

Hector's eyes narrowed. He grinned wolfishly. "You are at this precise moment! It's written all over you."

Midas looked down at himself, as if expecting this to literally be the case.

"I think…," said Midas slowly, "I might be."

"Might be what?"

Midas cleared his throat. "In love."

Hector threw his arms wide open. "Then always make sure you act like it."

Ida needs to know where they stand, because she doesn't have that much time left.

Midas, after running away back home, is sitting in the kitchen with his friend's littler girl, Denver.

"You haven't shown me new pictures in ages. Show me some now."

He shook his head. She started to play with the digital's buttons. The two of them sat in silence as she flicked through its image bank.

"Not even one of Ida," she said.

Midas rubbed his forehead. "They were all too awful. I couldn't get them right."

"And you got rid of them because they didn't look nice enough?"

"Precisely."

"I think you were in love with her."

"Love… is not something you understand when you're a grown-up, Den. It's just as if it's… a memory of something that should have been. From stories… and… I don't know whether you really can be in love."

"You could be," she said. "You and a few other people. You're like me. You've got it."

"Got what?"

She shrugged. "A grip. On the bits in the back of your head. And here…" She touched her tummy. "Somewhere in here."

Midas goes to rescue Ida from the house she's stuck in looking for a cure that won't work, and he finds her.

"Sh-shit it's cold," she said.

"I know. I'm sorry."

She nodded drowsily. "Your coat. Thanks."

"It'll warm up in the car."

"Hug me."

"I… I'm sorry?"

She opened her eyes a crack. They couldn't focus. Her irises were ash between red eyelids. "Put your arms around me."

Carefully, he reached around her with both arms so his fingers locked across her back.

"You have to squeeze," she whispered, "or it's not a hug."

"You have to be bolder," she whispered. "Please." Then she pushed her face into his.

She begins living with him, and here's the third and final passage that I love:

She had felt a collision with him and known that she had wanted this her whole life: to crash for just one moment into another person at such a velocity as to fuse with him.

That moment had come not at the height of a night's passion, as she'd expected, but in the morning when their eyes opened at the same time and felt for focus in each other's. They were newborns, wide-eyed, sharing their first breath of the world. Then it was over as quickly as it had come. Midas had blushed and looked away from her. She had reached out to hold his face.

This book was magical to me, and I highly recommend it to you.