on beauty-class 1

I'm glad we're going to read this entire book, and talk about it in class.  I really like this book so far, partly because the writing is pretty simple but I can tell there are a lot of underlying themes.  So it will be interesting to hear very intelligent opinions and to gain insight into this novel.  One thought I had when reading this book was that I really do not want to have children.  It was like what I was thinking when I was watching the movie "Dan In Real Life".  In that movie, Dan could do nothing right in the eyes of his children, and I feel like Howard is kind of in that same boat.  Howard is essentially treated fairly badly by Jerome and his wife, and seems slightly annoyed by the youngest son, Levi.  He obviously cares, he had good intentions when he went to the Kippses home when he thought Jerome was going to get married, but got into trouble doing that by his wife and Jerome.  I was also trying to figure out what Kiki was talking about when she talked about the mistake Howard made (43).  I thought she was talking about him going to the Kippses, but then she said, "she had measured a nameless, faceless woman in a hotel room next to what she knew of herself" and said something about one stupid night, and also said, "Your husband will screw somebody else, you will forgive him, you will stay".  It was interesting to me that such a big topic was mentioned so quickly.  And is Jerome mad at his father because of the debacle at the Kippses or because of his father's unfaithful behavior?