My Recent Reads

Books are a uniquely portable magic. -Stephen King

1. Outlander by Diana Gabaldon: The first time I heard about this book was through a book-tuber (a YouTuber who discusses books). She was obsessed with the book and raved about it in several of her videos. I made a mental note to look into the book, but never actively sought it out. Over the summer, while delving into the book section of a Goodwill, my eyes fell upon Outlander, and memories of hearing some girl on YouTube obsess over this story sparked. I picked it up from the shelf, but did not dive into it until recently. Holy moly, I am obsessed. This book is SO GOOD. I highly encourage everyone to pick this up somehow and read it. I am so excited to get the next book so I may continue into the series. The book is large, so it takes dedication, but I was so immersed in the story that I flew through it. I read it in all of my spare time. The story did have a few areas that became slow, but push through those and you will not be disappointed. The book is about a young woman who discovers a Scottish Stone Hedge and ends up being transported back in time to the medieval Scottish countryside that is full of savage Englishmen and Scottish Clans. Along the way, she comes across a young man, and you will have to read the book to find out what happens between the two!
2. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini: When I think of this book, I think of high school. Many of my friends had to read this for their English classes and loved it. I was spared from this book in my classes, and was actually a bit sad about it. I loved when we read novels in class. While in Goodwill, the same trip that I found Outlander, I came across this novel. I picked it up and kept it for when I needed something to read. I started it after I finished Outlander, and it was a bit of an adjustment. I hate to say this, but I honestly did not care for the book. It was definitely a good story, full of twists I never expected, and even touching in some parts, especially the end. However, I found myself finishing it purely to finish the story and get it out of the way. It took me longer to read than a book that size normally would. The story did, however, have some eye opening moments. It was my first time reading anything about that area of the world, and in that time period. 
3. Carrie by Stephen King: This book is very different for me. In high school, a boy I was dating absolutely LOVED Stephen Kings novel The Gunslinger, and I wanted to share that experience and discuss the story with him. However, in my mind it was quite boring. It threw me away from Stephen King for awhile, but here I am. I picked up a copy of Carrie from my schools library for this little experiment. It is a smaller book, so I figured it would be easier to get through. I have seen the movie, so this also made me curious to read this book. I regret seeing the movie before reading the book. So much. I am, again, not used to reading this style of writing, but found it much more interesting than The Gunslinger. The writing itself, in the story, was beautiful. The imagery really helps one to envision the scene in your head. The story was a creative and a unique twist to a normal magical phenomenon for other similar pieces. I am definitely interested in reading another book, one that I haven't seen the movie for already!

Taking Up Old Habits: Reading

Here we are, in the middle of fall semester, getting slammed with school work and midterms. I don't think I have ever had so much school work before in my life... and it is severely showing in my lack of blogging. It is severely showing in my lack of doing most of the stuff that I enjoy, the stuff that keeps me sane. As you can imagine, that saddens me. 

While I do not necessarily have time to go lay out by the pool or go sailing on the lake as often as I usually would, I have taken up one habit that I had lost for a very long time. This was my attempt to squeeze in something that I missed dearly: reading. It takes me a lot longer to get through a book these days because I usually only read about a chapter a night, sometimes less if it is a long one. As long as I read a little bit, it satisfies my need. Some nights all I am able to read, before completely passing out, are a few pages, but it is better than nothing. I have also developed a fear that my quality of writing/creative flow of ideas has slowed due to my lack of reading. I used to read about a book a week, sometimes more and sometimes less, and I was constantly learning. Sometimes I would learn more about the punctuation and grammar end of writing in books while other days a story would inspire my creative thoughts and leave me digging my brain for my own cool ideas. 

Along with reading, I wrote constantly. I used my ideas in my writings for school, for journaling, for creating my own stories. Of course anything I created at the time probably wasn't anything special due to the fact that I was quite a bit younger than I am now, but at least I kept up with my passions. The older I get, the more I feel like I have less time to do the things that I really enjoy. 

You are probably wondering why I have a picture of the book Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert pictured above. Well, I originally sat down to give a bit of a review of the book. In away, what I have already written here is the review. The book is about a depressed woman who, after going through a nasty divorce, sets off on a mission to find herself while traveling around the world to Italy, India, and Bali. The book shows her journey as she goes from being at one of the worst points of her life to learning how to be completely at peace with herself and her life. It is an inspiring story that I encourage everyone to read. I randomly selected this book to restart my love of reading daily and it turned out to be the perfect choice. I happened to pick it up for less than a dollar at Goodwill and I feel like I wasn't meant to pick it up until now. It was like God knew I was going to reach a point in the semester where I would need words like that to give me hope and keep me going. 

I think that what I am getting at here is that if you are reaching that point in the semester, or even that point with anything, take a breather and do something you love. Go see a movie, pick up a book, hang out with friends, make cookies... whatever you need to do you should do it! It will make you feel better, I promise.

xoxo, tay