lit.

While I was at Lake Powell (also known as Heaven, or That Place Which Makes Me Whole Again), I had four different books packed into my bag.  I'm sure it would have been much lighter, and I obviously didn't get through all four books, but ever since I was young, I've carried a book with me everywhere.  When I saw the pilot episode of Gilmore Girls and saw Rory always needed a book with her, I felt validated.  When I was eight and nine years old it was Nancy Drew and when I was twelve and thirteen it was Harry Potter and when I was sixteen and seventeen it was Fitzgerald with a little bit of Agatha Christie thrown in there.

I love reading.  I love love love reading.  I'll never stop.  And I love to read multiple books at one time.  When I was a kid and had the time to finish a book every two or three days, I'd be able to satisfy my need for multiple genres and topics and plots as they moved through quickly.  But these days I am lucky if I get thirty minutes of reading a day.  So instead of running through book after book after book, I read them all at the same time.  I've found I will get sucked into certain stories faster than others, which means I'll then finish it as quickly as possible in order to eat it up.  But I'm usually balancing some nonfiction, some fiction, and some easy reading.

There were quite a few of teen pieces I read at the start of the summer, mostly so I could get into the mindset of how different authors handle the voice of the teenager, and particularly the teenage girl.  I'm still trying to figure it out, and I think I'm a little cleaner than some, but a lot of that may just be that my teenage years were so innocent I can't dream of writing a slightly scandalous 16-year-old girl.

Here are the titles I've read this summer.  Any recommendations?

Surprisingly I never read this as a teenager.  There were a couple of days there at the end of May that I had away from work, and I sat by my pool and read this one.  What I enjoyed was the narrator being a teenage boy.  What I didn't enjoy is the landscape.  Don't ask me why, because I don't have a concrete answer, but I have never liked the American Southwest in literature.

I highly recommend this.  It's not for everyone - language is harsh and intense, and the subject matter is dark and difficult.  The honesty and the pain of what are essentially kids fighting off disease that will define them for the rest of their lives is told beautifully through a format that is stark and short and thoughtful.  This author understands how to explain without needing explanation.

There's a lot of controversy surrounding this one, and I know the validity is in question, but it was interesting and provocative nonetheless. 

Painful and frightening, the novel of a girl fighting her inner demons while she reconciles her feelings over her friend's death is haunting.  Haunting, mostly, because you know it actually happens.

Whitney and I were wandering through Barnes & Noble, saw this title, and I picked it up out of curiosity.  It takes a while to get into, and it's not nearly as strong as anything else that I read this summer, but it's an easy one to get through.  It's the Bachelor meets the Hunger Games.  And it's got some really unlikeable characters.

Currently Reading...

Saw this one in the bookstore and it immediately caught my attention.  It's what I read down at LP, and I loved everything about it.  It's fiction, but fragmented fiction.  The book is comprised of stories of different women in different stages of life.  They struggle through challenges, and they're a little uncertain, and they're extremely relatable.  I still have a few chapters to go, but my favorite thus far has been the story of two women who meet up in a posh NYC park; former working women who are now mothers and who feel like they have to be someone they're not, simply for appearances.  It's the discussion that feminism has given us: we have the opportunity and the freedom to be working moms or moms or working women but we feel so much pressure from ourselves to appear as something important.  I can tell you that I feel that pressure every day - do I focus on being an intellectual or do I continue with a job that makes me happy?  Who is to say what makes us better?

NOTE: The content and the language are harsh.  Not for someone who is sensitive to that sort of thing.

Speaking of feminism... I studied excerpts of this all through college and now I'm finally reading it in its entirety.  It is the ultimate discussion of what we need to develop our minds.

I'm pretty sure I'll be reading this for the rest of my life, until I finally finish.  I guess I could read the abridged version, but I feel like that might be cheating.

NEXT UP:

Same author as Clean.  I'm excited to see how she handles teenage mental health.

Perfect prose.  Can't wait.

Whitney recommended this to me.  Leslie just finished it on the boat (she literally had it on the ski boat because she couldn't stop until she finished).  I'm interested to see how compelling it is.

And finally, I love reading and re-reading my favorite titles, like the Harry Potter series, or the Chronicles of Narnia, or anything from Azar Nafisi.  The above photos are a lot to get through for the rest of the summer though, so I think I'll save my re-reading for Fall.

I'm twelve and I don't even care.

Do you remember where you were when *spoiler alert* Sirius died?  I was in my bed, basically devouring that entire book because I was desperate to know (because J.K. Rowling had hinted at a huge death), and when it hit, I had to turn back a couple of pages and re-read because I couldn't believe what had happened.  That morning I had awoken crazy early, something I never did because - shockingly - I'm not a morning person, but I was waiting for the Amazon box with my book in it that would be delivered on my doorstep, and I couldn't wait.  Once it came, I just sat in my room the whole day, without music, and with fruit snacks and Root Beer alongside me, and I just read and read and read.

I didn't discover Harry Potter when all of you did.  I remember that it was becoming really popular, but my mom had this attitude of it being too easy, and too frivolous, and so I sort of adopted that attitude as well.  I finally started reading it because I was babysitting these two boys that lived across the street, and every night they liked to read a chapter as they were going to bed.  I was pretty enchanted from the start, as I think it's pretty clear everyone was, and I was lucky enough to get into it once the first four books in the series had been written.

After that it was the same waiting game: checking her website religiously, hoping for any clues or secrets.  I still remember her hint at a new teacher who was as sweet as a bee.  I remember deciphering the artwork that was released - what were all of the candles?  What did they mean?

And then it happened time, after time.  Waiting for Book Six.  And then the last one.  And I cried because it was ending.  How strange, right?

I'm reminded of all of this because my niece Hannah has begun reading the books.  She's on the fourth one now, and we've been watching the movies.  It's fun to see her imagination start moving with the characters, and it's exciting to relive the introductions of plotlines and revelations alongside her.  It makes me sad, too, that she'll never know the fun of living in that moment when the magic is happening.

I don't understand why I feel so much sorrow in that, but I do.  I wish I could take her back with me, and have her in my room with me so that we can cry together over our favorite character dying too soon.  How wonderful would it be to sit and discuss all of the intricate details together?  And then how fun would it be to move to other novels?  There's such a peace I find in literature, and I sincerely hope that I can always be surrounded by individuals who don't just appreciate, but who crave books in the way that I do.  I need to share that with someone else.

Meanwhile, I love being able to go back and feel like a little kid again when talking about this world that doesn't even exist.  I love that I can bond with her over it.  And I can't wait to introduce my own kids to it someday.

Besides, don't you sort of still wake up some mornings and hope your Hogwarts letter is coming?

boom sha-clack clack.

Happy V-Day everyone.  Hope yours has been a blast.  There are two important days in February, the fifth, which is apparently the day that EVERYONE decided to pop out babies (but most importantly my love Whitney - and maybe even some former loves) and the fourteenth.  Not because of any sort of romantic whim or sentiment, because let's face it, the sweetest thing to happen to me on Valentine's Day has always come from my father..although Amy did give me a cartoon valentine today at work.  Close second.  [side note: favorite valentine memory comes from Junior year of high school.  maybe another time.]

Right, why February 14th is neat to me.  Because I've decided to start my own tradition.  It very possibly could have something to do with love or with pink or with chocolate or with candy confections that have slightly sinister sayings on them.  It also very possibly could have something to do with hate and brown and carrots and stupid M&Ms handed out at weddings as favors.

Go with me.  I'm getting there.

Last year at this time I was in a creative writing class that pushed me a little bit and gave me wonderful excuses and deadlines and oh my gosh I MISS IT.  I was reading essays and writing essays and pretending to write fiction and poetry and terrible haiku and pissing off some kid in the class who didn't like me (but I'm sorry, he just used SO MANY ADJECTIVES EVERY TIME).  It was so grand.  And last valentine's day I sat on my bed while Whitney sat on hers and I read her my new favorite essay about love and marriage and she looked at me as though I were completely insane and oh.  It was wonderful.

So while beaus come and go, my one true love remains and lasts and I love it almost as much as I love my Michael Kors handbag.

The essay.

Sometimes I forget how much I love it.  Sometimes I forget to read it.  Sometimes I forget to write it.  Most times I just prefer watching Dance Moms or Gossip Girl or making monies.  But it seems fitting that on a day when many of your beaus try to convince you to fall in love with them all over again, I remind myself why I love a simple piece of nonfiction so much.

So tonight, I give you another favorite to read.  This isn't so much about love as it is about what we can do for others, mostly just in being more considerate.  Besides, I just googled a song that I liked a lot and found out that it was on the Breaking Dawn soundtrack, so I now need to go bleach my ears with some wit.  Who better to do it than the master of the essay, Mr. Mark Twain?

I love you, and chances are I love some of you quite a bit, but let me tell you... the essay is seriously loyal and loving and never fails to give me a warmth that reminds me I can do this thing we call life.

"Hygiene and sentiment"

preach, sister.

Dahlia, you see I am melancholy.  It has done nothing but rain all summer; the wind makes me nervous and freckles me.  Blacheville is very mean; there are hardly any green peas in the market yet, people care for nothing but eating; I have the spleen, as the English say; butter is so dear! and then, just think of it--it is horrible!  We are dining in a room with a bed in it.  I am disgusted with life.


I'm reading Les Miserables this summer and I'm pretty sure this little excerpt confirms that women have always been annoying.