I don't see a discussion thread for Finders Keepers over here in Cara Laughs, so figured I'd start one.

I just finished the book and loved it! Read it in 2 days. Although I wasn't crazy about Mr Mercedes, I did like it, but this one is way better. A real page turner and so intense at the end, there were times I had to stop and catch my breath.

I made a few note as I was reading. Here's some random thoughts and parts that resonated with me.

There's a line, "If you're looking for optimism, buy a Harlequin Romance". I liked the whole concept preceding this line where Andy, the bookstore guy says how the purpose of American culture is to create a norm. And goes on to explain this means that extraordinary people must be leveled. Which is why Rothstein writes Jimmy Gold into someone unexceptional at the end of the last published work.

Through this, Morris becomes so attached to the outcome and so angry over the apparent "sell out" of Jimmy Gold, and being the sociopath that he is, takes it too far in what he did to Rothstein.

But what I like is how Rothstein continues the arc in the unpublished work in his handwritten journals that never get published, hinting that there can in fact be a second "Golden Age" in our lives. That we still can be extraordinary.

One funny part is the scene where Catch-22 get's a bullet through it, and Hodges looks at it and says "That's got to hurt the resale price."

As readers and collectors, I feel we can relate to so much of this story. How we can become so emotionally attached to characters in novels, mostly because of how well we can relate to them and their circumstances, and what might be going on in our lives at the time.

I was a little bumbed about the fate of the notebooks, but I guess Pete gets to retell what he read through his story in The New Yorker.

I predicted the end where it circles back to Hartsfield in the hospital, and we can see how this sets up the 3rd book nicely.

Lots to be said about this book, but those are some thoughts. Great book!