Skip to main content

You'll Thank Me Later

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!

Comments

  1. How cool. I have a Deb Caletti book at home that I should read - I've never read any of her stuff!

    ReplyDelete
  2. This 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?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Janssen, I really love her stuff. She writes with such humor and insight. Not just fluff.

    Elisa, I re-live vicariously through your reading, don't I? Lol. You put up with my book pushing like no other.

    ReplyDelete
  4. The Outsiders. It's been a very very long time.
    Stay golden Ponyboy.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Jenny Girl, ooh, good call. Such a wonderful book. Stay cool, Sodapop.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

You Might Also Like

Interview with April Lindner + Jane Giveaway!

I'm very excited about today's interviewee. As you know, I had been looking forward to the publication of Jane for months when a review copy happened in my lap and I let out a gasp of joy. Being a modernized retelling of Jane Eyre with a rock star-ized Mr. Rochester named Nico and a cover that hits every last one of my aesthetic buttons, it was sort of made to order for this reader. Needless to say, it more than lived up to my not inconsiderable expectations and I have been recommending it on a pretty much daily basis to family, friends, co-workers, neighbors . . . you get the picture. It's now just under a month until the book is out and, in anticipation of the release, I invited  April Lindner over to dish about all things Jane. She kindly accepted. Please welcome April! First things first: The Cover. I am in deep smit with that cover. Did you have any input and what was your reaction upon seeing it for the first time? I adore the cover too, and was blown away the...

Linger by Maggie Stiefvater, Review + Giveaway!

It seems a long time ago now that I first read Shiver -- the first book in the Wolves of Mercy Falls trilogy. But looking back I started it on the plane ride to BEA and finished it there in the conference center, fingers gripping the cover tightly, while sitting on the floor in one of the many autograph lines. And now it's May again and BEA is right around the corner and I emerge from my recent and nasty reading slump stupor to find a copy of Linger sitting in my mailbox like a glove thrown down in the dirt. "I will be the one to pull you out," it whispers to me slyly. "Just open me up and take a sip. I promise--one sip is all it will take." And I look at it with fear and longing written all over my face. "You promise?" I ask  intently. "Because it's been a long walk in the cold and I'm not sure I can take another disappointment." "Just open me up," it says, confidence written all over its cover. And so I do. And everythin...

Terms of Endearment

Have you ever been reading a book, moving along quite nicely, and then-- bam --a character whips out a particular term of endearment that just yanks you right out of the story? It happened to me recently, and I'm sad to say I couldn't recover. I did try. But she just kept using that term and I . . . I had to get the hell out of Dodge. Buh-bye, story. Don't let the door hit you on the way out. I'm not saying this is the norm (thank goodness). I can put up with a certain amount of treacly back and forth when it comes to the exchange of terms of endearment, especially if they fit the characters, their background, culture, the tenor of their relationship, etc. And the history of these terms  at home and from around the world is often fascinating (at times hilarious). But there comes a point where I can't see past the cheese and/or weird anymore and I do not want to be with these people any longer . Shallow? Perhaps. But it's a very individual thing, isn't it?...