Molly over at Ten Block Walk has started a great discussion about the books we'd go back in time to give our younger selves if we could. If it were me, I think I'd stealth stalk my teenage self, leaving single books in unmarked, brown paper wrapped parcels. One on the back step, one on my pillow, one in my locker on that first day of high school...And the deliveries would have to start with Honey, Baby, Sweetheart by Deb Caletti. I read that book a couple of years ago and just could not get over how I wish every teenage girl could read it. Like if they did it would help them know who they are and avoid a fair chunk of unnecessary pain. It's a beautiful book and one I highly recommend. Follow-up dropoffs would include The Road Home by Ellen Emerson White (because EEW books rock), Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes by Chris Crutcher (because it would have made me think about things I wasn't thinking about then but should have been), An Abundance of Katherines by John Green (because 14-year-old Angie was in desperate need of a good laugh), and the complete Harry Potter series (because I would have thought I'd died and gone to heaven). What books would you love to have read then? Go check out the discussion and leave a comment!
There's really very little to say, isn't there? I hope you are well, wherever you are. I hope that your loved ones are. I hope that you're finding small ways to stay afloat, to remain connected to something, someone, someplace (real or fictional) that sustains you. Dark and difficult times, indeed. I've rather been holding on to this review. I felt so much, so quickly, so irrevocably for this book that it rapidly became hard to talk about to anyone who hadn't read it. And so I hope I can do it justice, just barely enough justice that, if you haven't, you'll run right out and do so. Now is the perfect time. I feel strongly that this book is what you need in your life at this moment. And so. You might want to prepare yourselves. I'm about to wax rhapsodic. But first, and introductory excerpt: At the end of that session, Fay said, What if it's not what happened with this boy you regret, it's you? It's the you who you left behind. It's ...
How cool. I have a Deb Caletti book at home that I should read - I've never read any of her stuff!
ReplyDeleteThis is something thats crossed my mind more than once. Strangly, in my late teenage years I had a little Angie-Fairy that would drop books of every kind off in different areas of my life in accordance with what was going at the time. So in a way, you were probably doing for me, what you wished you could do for yourself years ago... How lucky am I?
ReplyDeleteJanssen, I really love her stuff. She writes with such humor and insight. Not just fluff.
ReplyDeleteElisa, I re-live vicariously through your reading, don't I? Lol. You put up with my book pushing like no other.
The Outsiders. It's been a very very long time.
ReplyDeleteStay golden Ponyboy.
Jenny Girl, ooh, good call. Such a wonderful book. Stay cool, Sodapop.
ReplyDelete