Sean - oPtion$: The Secret Life of Steve Jobs, a Parody by Fake Steve Jobs (249 pages)

"It seems to me that for two hundred and fifty bucks an hour the guy could go a little easier on me. But anyway, he's right. That's how it feels. Like I'll die. It terrifies me.

"Yes, I survived the last time Apple threw me out. But this time, I'm not so sure. I'm fifty-one years old. I've had cancer. I'm not as tough as I used to be.

"And even last time nearly killed me. I was thirty years old and living by myself in a mansion in Woodside with no furniture, just a huge stereo system and pillows on the floor. For months I did nothing. I'd take acid for days on end. The record was fourteen days, and believe me, that was a life-changing episode. But mostly it was this Keebler-Kahn type period in my life, with the eight stages of mourning, like anger, denial, anger again, then more anger, then rage, vindictiveness, more anger, and then revenge."

Scores So Far:

Monica: 2,534 pages read.

Sean: 2,357 pages read.

Monica Leads: by 177 pages read.

Sean - Dearly Devoted Dexter, by Jeff Lindsay (292 pages)

"So I was doped, tightly bound, and all alone. But there's always some positive to every situation, if you just look hard enough, and after trying to think of one for a moment, I realized that I had to admit that so far I had not been attacked by rabid rats."

Sean - Lake Wobegon Summer 1956, by Garrison Keillor (291 pages)

Her beautiful buttocks rise again and under she goes and gropes for me underwater and I dive and she holds my arms tight, pulls me close, and we kiss a bubbly kiss, eyes open, her breasts like two small friendly otters. I struggle to rise to the surface but she won't let me go. She holds my hardness in her hand until I can bear it no longer. With a powerful thrust, I propel us both to the surface and hoist her onto the dock and rise dripping from the water-

It was an unfinished story.

Sean - Darkly Dreaming Dexter, by Jeff Lindsay (288 pages)

"Weren't we all crazy in our sleep? What was sleep, after all, but the process by which we dumped our insanity into a dark subconcious pit and came out on the other side ready to eat cereal instead of the neighbor's children?"

Sean - "American on Purpose: The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot" by Craig Ferguson (268 pages)

My traveling companions began to notice I was behaving oddly and asked what was wrong. I said I felt sick, maybe it was the flu or something, and I just had to go home.

But I knew in my heart it wasn't the flu. I knew instinctively that there was only one way to stop the nightmare that was occurring inside me. For the first time in my life, and I remember this as clearly as if it happened this morning, I needed a drink.

***

As soon as we got back into town, I ran to the Hurricanes bar on West Nile Street and pounded down three or four pints of lager very quickly. The sweating and shaking abated and I felt a little anxious but a lot better. In rehab, years later, I reread Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I equated that moment in Mrs. Henderson's car to the awful realization Henry Jekyll has when he grasps that he no longer needs the potion to transform into the monster, Edward Hyde.

He needs the potion to remain the ordinary Henry Jekyll.

Sean - "Paper Towns" by John Green (305 pages)

"I SEE YOU!" Ben shouted, pointing at me with the sword. "I SPY QUENTIN JACOBSON! YESSS! Come here! Get on your knees!" he shouted.

"What? Ben, calm down."

"KNEES!"

I obediently knelt, looking up at him.

He lowered the beer sword and tapped me on each shoulder. "By the power of the superglue beer sword, I hereby designate you my driver!"

"Thanks," I said. "Don't puke in the minivan."

"YES!" he shouted. And then when I tried to get up, he pushed me back with his non-beer-sworded-hand, and he tapped me again with the beer sword, and he said, "By the power of the superglue beer sword, I hereby announce that you will be naked under your robe at graduation."

"What?" I stood then.

"YES! Me and you and Radar! Naked under our robes! At graduation! It will be so awesome!"

"Well," I said, "it will be really hot."

"YES!" he said. "Swear you will do it! I already made Radar swear. RADAR, DIDN'T YOU SWEAR?"

Radar turned his head ever so slightly, and opened his eyes a slit. "I swore," he mumbled.

"Well then, I swear, too," I said.

"YES!" Then Ben turned to Lacey. "I love you."

"I love you, too, Ben."

"No, I love you. Not like a sister loves a brother or like a friend loves a friend. I love you like a really drunk guy loves the best girl ever." She smiled.