Skip to main content

Booktwins

I have a booktwin. Her name is Martha. She can usually be found herehere, and sometimes over here. She's the one with remarkably cute shoes and her nose in a book.
Martha and I have known each other for close to nine years now. My word, can that be right? Amazingly, it is. We "met" in the Young Adult Reading Group (YARG) at the now defunct Readerville, may it rest in peace. We bonded first and foremost over our love for Tamora Pierce's Alanna quartet. Specifically a mutual adoration of a certain King of Thieves from that series. (We  you, George!) A friendship was born as we quickly began noticing how often our bookish tastes dovetailed and how closely our reading history matched. I still find it uncanny how we discovered the same series at the same age, how we owned the same beat-up editions of beloved books, how we crushed on the same literary characters without even the faintest hint of embarrassment. And how we continue to carry those torches, years later.

Back then, whenever you posted on the 'Ville, a tagline of your choice would show up under your username. The entire time I was a member (more than six years total), mine was set to a couple of lines from one of my favorite poems by W.B. Yeats--"A Poet to His Beloved:"
I bring you with reverent hands/ the books of my numberless dreams
When I first read that poem, I burst into tears on the spot. There is nothing like that moment, that epiphany, when you realize someone else, who lived ages before you, felt exactly the same way. Was able to put those fragile, precious emotions you feel into words in such a way that they would touch you across time and pages and oceans. As most of you know, there is also nothing like that moment when you actually meet someone else, be it in person or virtually, who gets it the way you get it. It's devastating in the most joyful sense of the word. And it is binding. Martha got that quote. Got the privacy and hope and vastness and risk packed into those two deceptively simple lines. And we have been friends (and booktwins) ever since.
Whenever we come across something marvelous the other has not clued in on, we beg, we cajole, we wheedle, we shout until the other picks it up and devours it. So that then we can experience all over again that moment of connection, that absorption in something larger than ourselves. It took Martha years to get me to read Megan Whalen Turner's Thief books and I will, of course, never stop flogging myself for not listening to her sooner because the books in that series instantly became some of the books of my life. I got her to read (and love) Ellen Emerson White (!) awhile back and have been trying for something like eight years to get her to read Daughter of the Forest. She swears to me that this is the year. And, true to form, I'm on pins and needles awaiting her reaction. We've had the good luck to meet three times in real life and I'm amazed how quickly we fall into the patterns of two people who've been a part of each other's lives for years. Which I guess we have. And for that I am grateful. Because life would be so much lesser without her.

So I'm curious. Is there a booktwin in your life? What books did you bond over?

Comments

  1. There isn't, I'm kind of sad now :( I'll keep searching.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hey lady, you just made me tear up in my office!

    You are the best book twin a girl could hope for. And just think how many more books we'll be discovering for years to come!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Alexa, lol, I truly didn't mean to make anyone feel bad. Just wanted to send the gratitude and good karma out there into the ether. :)

    Martha, it's that thought that's had me smiling all day long. *hugs*

    ReplyDelete
  4. Angie - you didn't make me feel bad I know "somewhere out there underneath the deep blue sky someones thinking about Saving Francesca too" :-)

    ReplyDelete
  5. I met my booktwin and best friend through our love of Jane Austen. :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. I don't have one either. :( I hope I meet her soon.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Alexa, LOL! You are awesome.

    Shelley, classic. I love it. Which one's your favorite? :)

    Chachic, it'll happen. When you're least expecting it.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

You Might Also Like

Interview with Diana Peterfreund + Rampant Giveaway!

Ever since I fell in love with Diana Peterfreund 's Secret Society Girl series last year, I've been hoping I'd get the chance to interview her here. Tomorrow marks the release of her new novel, Rampant , and let me tell you that you have not read a book like this before. You can read my review here , but all you really need to know is that it's a story about killer unicorns and the young women who hunt them. You want to read it now, don't you? Oh, yeah, and it's YA and the first in a series! To celebrate the release, Diana graciously answered a few of my most burning questions. As she is always a delight, I know you'll enjoy them as much as I did. First things first: When did the idea for Rampant first hit you and what (if anything) did you know right off the bat? In early 2005, just after selling Secret Society Girl , I had this dream of being chased by a very dangerous unicorn. I woke up and went to go look it up to see if I could figure out the meanin...

Review | Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

It really is a pretty cover. And dragons. I love them so.  It's been far too long since I've read a book in which dragons played any kind of primary character role. They do here, and they are probably my favorite aspect of this book. But more on that later. It's probably worth noting that I, like the rest of the world, was aware of Fourth Wing and the collective losing of BookTok's mind over it. I mean, it was kind of thrilling to hear that you couldn't find a copy anywhere—in the sense that I love it when books are being consumed and loved. And when that happens in such a way that it takes publishing by surprise (for lack of a better way to phrase it) so much so that they have to scramble to print more. So I did the sensible thing and bought the ebook. And then I proceeded to do the not-so-sensible-but-extremely-Angie thing and not read it. There was a cross-country move tucked in there somewhere between the buying and the reading, but more on that at a later date...

Angie's 2025 Must Be Mine

  As ever, begin as you mean to go on. And so here are my most anticipated titles of 2025: And we're still waiting for covers on these, but I'm just as excited for each of them: The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, Volume 9 by Beth Brower Wish You Were Here by Jess K. Hardy Hemlock & Silver by T. Kingfisher Pitcher Perfect by Tessa Bailey Father Material by Alexis Hall Alchemised by SenLinYu Breakout Year by K.D. Casey What titles are on your list?