Rambling About.. Ogre, Ogre by Piers Anthony (Xanth #5)

Wednesday my son had his end-of-the-year class picnic at a park near his school and I walked up to join the fun. He told me that it would start at 10:30am ... I arrived at 10:16am ... it didn't actually start until noon. I was more than a little tempted to just stretch out in the grass and snooze (I was, after all, skipping my usual post-work nap in order to be there), but opted to read instead. I ended the day with a killer sunburn and a mostly-finished book and I'm ending my work shift with a completely finished book! There were parts of Ogre, Ogre that I had some difficulty following but I think that's mostly due to the muddled exhausted brain . Even with the muddle, though, it's still highly enjoyable!

One of the things that I love about the Xanth series is how characters met early on keep getting revisited -- either themselves or their offspring (and, I'm sure, further on it'll be their offspring). This time around we've got the story of Dor's friend, the half-ogre Smash. Because of Good Magician Humphrey, he's travelling with Tandy who is the daughter of a nymph named Jewel and the Castle Roogna guard (and friend of Dor's father Bink), Crombie. They also get additional travelling companions along the way and run into more characters we already know from the first four books. Along the way each one learns about themselves and each other. There are always life lessons in Xanth there are twists and turns and oh-so-very many puns. (If you aren't a fan, stay out of Xanth.) It's a lot like some of the towns I lived in growing up -- everyone knows everyone or at least they  know their third cousin twice removed on their step-father's cousin's side of the family.

First Lines: 
Tandy tried to sleep, but it was difficult. The demon had never actually entered her private bedroom, but she was afraid that one night he would.

Faves on 4s:
14% - "Smash - you're not rhyming!"
           "Why - so I am not!" he agreed, startled. "That must be the curse of the Eye Queue; it has disrupted               my natural mechanism of communication."
           "It's done more than that!" Tandy exclaimed. "Smash, you sound smart!"
34% - Smash threw himself into the sheer joy of combat, the fundamental delight of every true ogre.
64% - If brass girls could blush copper, goblin girls blushed tan. "You mean you folk like me?"
74% - Ignorance was not necessarily bliss, as any smart creature would know.
94% - What did he want with ogres anyway? They were dull creatures who crunched the bones on human folk.