Read it or Weep

I have more than one frame of reference for the word “WOW.” It was my son’s first word; it is an example of a palindrome; turned upside down it says MOM, and it is one half of the current super chamois called “Shamwow.” WOW is also the word that I said out loud when I finished reading the last page of The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. 

We all have books that we have liked, books we have loved, books that we want to insist that absolutely everybody we know reads. However, I only have one book that has WOWed me. 

“Extraordinary” has been the only other one-word exclamation that I have said out loud upon finishing a book.  That book was Holes by Louis Sacher. 

Sometimes one word is enough. Sometimes one word says it all.

—Janet