The Odds

No homeless mentions in The Odds by Stewart O'Nan, but I came to realize why I checked out a book, I most likely already read: The Odds by Kathleen George. The O'Nan book is the newly acquired one. Ha, ha, what are the odds that someone would read two books with same title in the same week or so.

This one is subtitled: A Love Story, the other was a detective murder mystery novel. I generally do not read love stories. This one sounded interesting. A short 179 pages it took me too long to read. I kept putting it down. I considered not finishing it. Two things in the book interested me.

One, at the start of each chapter, odds were listed. Like the odds that a U.S. tourist would visit Niagara Falls is 1 in 195. I thought the odds of being killed in a bus accident would be more than 1 in 436,212. Seems it should be a more unlikely cause of death.

Two, I liked reading a little bit about Niagara Falls. I was there twice as a child. Yet even some of that got boring. Like listing various displays at a Ripley's Believe it or Not museum. I guess it could give a reader a feel for being there with the characters. For me, it was "okay, okay, can we get on with the story now".

If I say the odds that I will like a love story are one in a million, I would be lying. I have read some good ones;  just not interested in romance anymore, unless there is a good story to go along with it. The Odds was a decent story; yet I did not enjoy reading it all.

Wonder what the odds are that a person will be homeless at least once in their lives.