Sunday, June 7, 2009

Books for...A Rainy Day!


Hello, fellow readers! Here is the second installment of books I think you all would enjoy. If you have suggestions or comments, I'd love to hear from you!

BOOKS TO READ…

...IN A SUMMER STORM!

These are a bit more deep, emotional, introspective, and moving works, but they are also my favorite grouping of them all. The stories are often difficult, turbulent, and bracing, so a violent monsoon is the perfect accompaniment (but you can of course read them anytime). I think I cried while reading every single one, in the best possible way.

• PAPER TOWNS by John Green: This story of loving, losing, and looking quite literally changed my life. A New York Times bestseller and the winner of the Edgar Award for Young Adult Mystery, it includes a great road trip, some mental breakdowns, some epic break-ins, and the world’s largest collection of black Santas. If you feel like anyone’s ever imagined you wrong, read this book!

• IF I STAY by Gayle Forman: I haven’t cried this hard while reading a book since Where The Red Fern Grows. However, it’s even more rarely that I was this moved. The story of a girl who loses her family and has to make a decision as to where to go next, this short but powerful book will make you consider and cherish the people you love in a different, more immediate way (or rather, it made me). It also has some fun moments, and a particularly poetic depiction of a young love. Whether you need a good cry or just a good read, this is a story that stays with you.

• JELLICOE ROAD by Melina Marchetta: This is the affecting story of a boarding school in rural Australia and the mysterious circumstances surrounding one of its students, the narrator Taylor. Everyone says they are confused for the first fifty-odd pages, but just KEEP READING and it will all make sense, and you will be richly rewarded for your trouble. The book is constructed like a split-time puzzle, with fights and fires and all kinds of loves: of self, of family, of former enemies. My favorite line of dialogue, one I just can’t forget: “What are you so sad about? We’re going to know him for the rest of our lives.”

• WINTERGIRLS by Laurie Halse Anderson: This is a story of extremes of both body and emotion. With the prevalence of mental illness and eating disorders in today’s girls, it is even more important that we (and some adults) read this heartbreaking depiction of anorexia, peer pressure, and accidental suicide. This is a poetic and unblinkingly unpleasant story of an awful illness, and I learned more from this book about teen depression than I could have in about a million episodes of True Life. If you want to feel solid in your sanity, read this book. If you want to get a little glimpse of what it is like (for one girl) to be this lost and broken, read this book. It is deeply moving in a way that made me feel full, not empty.

• LOOKING FOR ALASKA, by John Green: This is an ambitious and deeply moving story of youth, love, life, and boarding school. It is full of pranks, fun, and bufreidos (chimichangas from Alabama), but it also has death, sex, and heartbreaking glimpses of what it means to live for each of us, different for every one of us. My favorite quote: “Thomas Edison’s last words were, ‘It’s very beautiful over there.’ I don’t know where there is, but I believe it’s somewhere, and I hope it’s beautiful.”

Thanks again! Please let me know if you do read one and like or don’t like it, and I’ll edit the list!

Next time: BOOKS TO READ…

…IN A TRENDY/NERDY INTERNET CAFÉ!

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